Thoughts on Living and Dying

Whining our lunch away

You sit down at lunch and somebody joins you. Within about 10 seconds what are most people doing? Bitching! People love to bitch. Have you ever been to lunch and people are "one-upping" each other? "You think your morning was bad? I'll give you bad." I have seen people leave the lunch room basically going, "I won lunch!" We get off on suffering - not 9/11 or cancer suffering but the day to day grind. "You don't know my boss." "Oh my god it was a nightmare today."

What we love to say now is that we were "venting." "Oh, it's good to vent. If you don't get it out it just eats away at you." Well if you are going to a counselor then it is good to get it out and WORK ON IT! But most of the time when we vent we just get it out and then put it back in for tomorrow. We don't do squat with it of any use. Would you like it if somebody came up to your lunch table every day and threw up on it? I would imagine that wouldn't go over very well and when you saw the person coming you would say get away from here. And if they said that they always felt so much better when they threw up you would probably encourage them to go to another table. "Feel better over there." When people are bitching they are throwing up on each other. It's a gross description but we have to see it that way to start thinking about stopping it. "Venting" doesn't sound so bad. "Vomiting" doesn't sound so good.

But it takes courage to stop the bitching and whining. If you don't think so, next time you're at lunch and everybody is doing it, you be the one to say, "Hey come on. Let's not be negative today. Let's be positive." And watch your friends turn on you like sharks at a feeding frenzy. "Ohhh. Mother Theresa's alive." You know they'll go for your throat or at best think you're just nuts. Bitching is entrenched. Don't go there. Change the subject. Eat alone. Don't just follow. Here's a little song I wrote about it. See if it resonates.

Staying Sane in Crazy Times - Don't be positive. Be strong!

One of the more annoying cliches that has arisen in the last few years is “just stay positive.” It has almost become a mantra for the mindless cheery. I’m not even sure what being “positive” means anymore. Just say happy words like love and puppies and blueberries? Being “positive,” whatever it might have originally meant, I think has degenerated into “all you have to do is think good thoughts and good things will happen.” In other words don’t use your brain to try and figure out what to do next. Just say the happy words and keep that smile on your face. Supposedly if you even acknowledge that the present situation is not very good you are just putting negativity out there. I have worked with people dealing with serious and sometimes terminal illnesses. I have actually heard people say to them that if they just stay positive they can beat anything. No you can’t. Sometimes you lose, period. Do you know anyone two hundred years old still walking around? I don’t. We go. Positive or not we go. If you have lost money during this economic downturn just being “positive” and saying happy words or mindless platitudes isn’t going to bring it back. Think about it this way. If you’re driving down the road and you hear some strange sounds coming out of your car are you just going to think happy thoughts or maybe you might take your car in for a check-up. 

Look, obviously I’m not saying that we should sit around and be as negative as we can, get depressed together, and spend most of our time complaining, though we do seem to like to do that in spite of the think positive movement. What I am saying is that we should not confuse this empty, mindless and baseless positive attitude schtick with an attitude that is truly positive because it is based on strength and in a belief in yourself. 

First we have to understand that a true attitude is like a philosophy of life. It is more than just words, it is a way of understanding how you define life and your relationship to it. Do you think there is a difference between somebody who says life is a bitch and at the end you die, and someone who says life is a grand adventure? I said that at one of my presentations and someone in the audience said, “Yeah. The person who says life is a grand adventure is either independently wealthy or stoned.” I responded that though that was a funny line it was a cynical line. I have been in hospital rooms with people who were dying and they had a better “attitude” than anyone else in the room. Their spirits were alive though their bodies were not doing very well. This was not about happy words. This was coming from a deep place within them. Some were religious and some were not, but there was a deep belief about themselves and life that helped them through this very difficult time. 

Jim Collins in his wonderful book, “ Good to Great,” talks about James Stockdale who was the highest ranking officer held as a prisoner in North Vietnam. He was held for eight years. It was obviously a brutal situation. He did a lot of things to help his men keep their morale up and keep a sense of unity between them. When asked what the difference was between the people who “made it” and didn’t make it especially from a psychological point of view he responded that the ones who didn’t make it were the optimists. I love to say that in my talks because almost always there is a gasp and very puzzled looks in the audience. Obviously you have to define your words. For him the “optimists” were the ones who would say, “We’ll be out of here by Christmas.” When that didn’t happen they went to Easter and then Thanksgiving etc. He said they died of a broken heart. What they were actually doing was employing the empty minded optimism that I mentioned at the beginning of this article. They had no basis for their statements. It just sounded good. Eventually it collapsed on them. 

Stockdale was basically saying that he would not participate in that type of optimism.  He had no idea when they were getting out of there. He acknowledged that the situation was horrible but he was firm in his belief that he would not be defeated. He truly believed he would get out of there and that the way he handled that situation would define him for the rest of his life. He was constantly strategizing ways to stay in control. I also believe that if they had taken him out to shoot him one of his last thoughts would have been that they did not defeat him. This was not a “happy words” philosophy. This was a powerful belief in himself and in life. Collins calls this the Stockdale paradox - acknowledge the dire situation but believe that you have the resources to triumph. I don’t actually think that is a paradox. I do think it goes against the grain of the empty minded optimists, the think positive group. I think Stockdale’s approach is the only thing that makes sense. You have to acknowledge the situation before you can deal with it. Denying what is going on keeps you stuck. You can’t change it if you don’t see it or admit it.

If you are going to deal with this economic crisis successfully you must take the time to rethink how you look at yourself and how you look at life in general. Write down your strengths even the ones that don’t necessarily seem pertinent to the present situation. Write down other crises that you have weathered and analyze what you did that helped. Look at your bad habits or tendencies and develop strategies to offset them. For example if there are certain people you hang out with and you tend to just get miserable together either do something else with those people or don’t hang out with them anymore. Find some rituals for yourself that help you regain some inner peace, or courage, or inspiration. Your strategies might be very different from mine. Maybe you have a certain Bible quote you like or a poem or some Mozart. It doesn’t matter. If they help you use them. Define what a successful resolution to this situation looks like to you. Make sure you take the time to rekindle your spirit. I will go into this in more depth in other articles but it is not enough to merely survive. You have to find ways to thrive.

Clear Your Mind - Claim Your Mind

When I used to do therapy I often would point out to clients that one of the big problems they were facing was that a bunch of issues in their lives had gummed together to make this big blob from which they could not get a clear picture of what was happening and what was needed. Everything had melted together. Our job, I would say, was to pull the strands out and separate them so that we could have a clear vision of what was really happening. In other words I was telling the clients they needed to clear their mind.
You’ve probably heard the phrase, “I can’t think straight.” That’s a refection of a cluttered mind. Sometimes it isn’t that we have many issues. There might be just one issue but many facets to that issue. Perhaps we start catastrophizing about something that has happened, seeing bad things cascading out of a single event. Perhaps we start attacking ourselves because we should be handling a situation better and we think of other ways we have failed, etc.
Sometimes it feels like there are too many choices. We start second guessing ourselves, playing the “what if” game or, if we are looking back, the “if only” game.
We can actually paralyze ourselves, afraid of making the wrong decision. When our self esteem is low we become very dependent on the approval and praise of others. We can become desperate to gain this approval. That very feeling of desperation clouds our mind. Most people would agree that taking drugs clouds the mind. You don’t function as well doing physical demands as you would not being under the influence. When we’re constantly needy, or desperate, or angry or scared it is like being under the influence of a drug. The drugs cloud the mind which makes it difficult to get off of the drugs. When you’re desperate, the desperation clouds the mind which makes it tough to stop being desperate.
In some ways there are no easy answers to this situation. Psychological therapies have been developed just to deal with this issue. However one can also make the case that clearing your mind is not as hard as we make it. Perhaps the issue should be framed as one in which we quit cluttering our mind. In other words desperation isn’t something from the outside but rather something we are creating ourselves and placing it in our minds and spirits. We need to break our patterns; our thinking patterns, our emotional patterns, and our behavior patterns. We need to focus on what matters to us, what our strengths are, what our resources are - including people, what we can do for others, and what we need to stop doing. Being angry or scared or frustrated isn’t evil. But staying there is destructive.
We need to construct pictures in our mind that allow us to take control of our lives and clear our minds. When I hear the phrase, “So and so is driving me crazy,” I always respond, “Why is he driving you anywhere? It’s your car! Take back your keys.” I like the image. I’m not saying it’s always easy but it’s a clear picture - something that is doable.
In the construct of clearing your mind less is better. Get priorities straight. Get timelines straight. If you start thinking such and such could happen, figure out when. How much time do you have? Are there other things you can focus on between now and that future time that might change the outcome.
Every morning, if you are serious about clearing your mind, start off the day with the question, “What can I do to make today a good day.” That isn’t, “What has to happen to me to make it a good day.” It’s what can I do. That clears the mind. I can do something. Maybe it won’t work but it’s something. Doing, moving, advancing clears the way. Inertia is incredibly tough to beat. If you allow it, it will feed you with poison.
Read about people who have overcome incredible setbacks and what they did to get through and over those setbacks. Oftentimes we reduce their wisdom to a quote or a platitude. Even if the quote is powerful and reflects their sentiment, you must not forget the sweat that went into making it happen. You can’t just talk about the windshield being dirty. At some point you have to clean it off.

Whining our lunch away

You sit down at lunch and somebody joins you. Within about 10 seconds what are most people doing? Bitching! People love to bitch. Have you ever been to lunch and people are "one-upping" each other? "You think your morning was bad? I'll give you bad." I have seen people leave the lunch room basically going, "I won lunch!" We get off on suffering - not 9/11 or cancer suffering but the day to day grind. "You don't know my boss." "Oh my god it was a nightmare today."

What we love to say now is that we were "venting." "Oh, it's good to vent. If you don't get it out it just eats away at you." Well if you are going to a counselor then it is good to get it out and WORK ON IT! But most of the time when we vent we just get it out and then put it back in for tomorrow. We don't do squat with it of any use. Would you like it if somebody came up to your lunch table every day and threw up on it? I would imagine that wouldn't go over very well and when you saw the person coming you would say get away from here. And if they said that they always felt so much better when they threw up you would probably encourage them to go to another table. "Feel better over there." When people are bitching they are throwing up on each other. It's a gross description but we have to see it that way to start thinking about stopping it. "Venting" doesn't sound so bad. "Vomiting" doesn't sound so good.

But it takes courage to stop the bitching and whining. If you don't think so, next time you're at lunch and everybody is doing it, you be the one to say, "Hey come on. Let's not be negative today. Let's be positive." And watch your friends turn on you like sharks at a feeding frenzy. "Ohhh. Mother Theresa's alive." You know they'll go for your throat or at best think you're just nuts. Bitching is entrenched. Don't go there. Change the subject. Eat alone. Don't just follow. Here's a little song I wrote about it. See if it resonates.

Quieting the mind - You don't have to be a "meditator."

One of the things we love to do in our society is set up either-or situations. Do you meditate or not? Do you believe in God or not? Are you a liberal or conservative? One problem with this approach is that it misses the subtleties and soft edges of so many situations. A bigger problem is that we don't ever take the time to find out what the hell we are talking about. We don't define our terms to find out if we are even talking about the same thing. Maybe you and I define God very differently so that I might not believe in your definition of God and still have a belief in what I call God. 

The idea of meditation is like that I believe. Many people believe that meditation, by definition, involves a lot of ritual, body positions, mantras, etc. They also believe that meditation is about quieting the mind and again by definition the only way to quiet your mind is through meditation which involves the aforementioned rituals. Many of us therefore don't even look for "other ways" to quiet the mind. "I don't meditate," ends the whole process. 

You don't have to be a meditator to begin the process of quieting your mind. You don't have to sit cross legged with your palms up and repeating a mantra. I'm not making fun of any of these rituals. I'm just saying you don't have to do them to quiet your mind. You just have to be committed to turning off the roof top chatter. Even the concept of quieting your mind is open to interpretation. Some people talk about a blankness, emptiness. Whatever. What's important, if you are determined to change the status quo in your head, is as I just said to be committed to the process. Maybe it's not totally clearing your mind but rather slowing it down. At least that's a beginning. Perhaps it's raising your awareness of when certain types of things enter your head; worries, resentments, enviousness, so that you can move from them more quickly. Don't compare yourself to an ideal because you will never quiet your mind. "Damn, I failed again. I'll just try harder." O.K. here we go. Quiet. Quiet. Quite a ballgame yesterday. Damn, I failed again." 

Maybe if you start with little increments of time like a few seconds or a minute or two. Maybe it's not being empty but replacing anxiety inducing thoughts with more peaceful ones. Even if doesn't work at first, you try again - not to reach some meditative standard but because you are committed to quieting your mind. Maybe you move through transitions. Find some music that touches your spirit. Perhaps a poem or some quotations or a Biblical verse or a geographical location can help quiet your mind or at least move it into a gentler place. 

Sometimes you can just touch your own face gently with your fingers and be kind to yourself. You can tell yourself that you are loved by you. (Even if you are not so happy with yourself at the moment.) If tears perhaps spring up don't let them turn into, "If she or he hadn't treated me that way . . . " If that line of thought does start up, get better at catching it quickly and moving away from it. You don't have to commit for an hour or half hour or even ten minutes. Just start the process. Don't get into that line of thinking, "That's just not me. I'm a go-go-go kind of person." We are all more capable than we think.