Posts Tagged ‘change’
Political Intelligence (Inteligance?)
I’m a pretty apolitical guy. It isn’t something that inspires me. For the most part, issues political are more inclined to tire me. There is so much empty rhetoric and over-compensating for limitations and failings in solutions being spouted. Most annoying of all to me is the polarization of issues and of political parties. Nothing is as extremely exclusive as the combatants try to make it seem. Nothing is all red or all blue and it’s a damn shame that our system has evolved to make any intelligent progress toward cooperation between the two primary parties such a long shot possibility.
I have no problem understanding that there are people who do have interest in the process of politics. But I am suffering with how people who do not have interest in politics can suddenly become swept up by outlandish reactions of others to a congressional vote and soon begin voicing their own desire for retaliation. Nothing has even happened yet! Why would someone write a letter to the editor of the paper to reflect the United States was born on 4-July-1776 and died 22-March-2010. Really? Did our country just expire?
What happens to people, that they embrace the logic of throwing bricks through windows of Democratic offices because they did not approve of the bill that was passed? Some of them finding it a worthy enough endeavor that they actually carry it out, multiple people in multiple cities! Why would a person publish a twitter message that calls for the President to be shot? My goodness. They are certainly revealing a fear of something. Something that hasn’t even happened yet. Maybe people believe that there will now be death panels that will be killing grandparents. I thought that ridiculousness had already been dispatched for the political theater that it was. Maybe I was wrong. It is incredibly disappointing.
Wasn’t I just looking for a way to not be counted among the human race? I’m willing to bet that the trees don’t have any of this insane behavior among their kind.
Pondering
In so many ways, it makes sense that ‘out of sight’ leads to, ‘out of mind’. I can honestly report that I do not think about Girl Scout cookies without some reason that triggers it. Maybe a cute little commercial, a feel-good news story, even that weak laugh-getter reference in a second-rate sitcom. Of course, too, there is always that irresistible pair of eyes that show up at the door in a sales call, …and then, BOOM, there they are, on the counter. I didn’t know Cyndie had placed an order. Not just one kind, either. More flavor styles than I knew existed. On the counter. Girl Scout cookies. Boxes of them. Just set there, on the counter.
I don’t know how many of you know about the period in my life when I decided I would quit eating sweets. I had seen it done by two other people I respect, and was impressed and inspired by them. One person started it as a lenten exercise in sacrifice and then just kept on going. I had never practiced such an act of sacrifice like that before and was intrigued. I gave it a shot.
Overall, I was struck by how easy it ultimately was, once I got over the initial withdrawal, to fully enjoy myself without even a craving for the sweet treats and desserts that I had decided to forgo. It turned out that I didn’t need to repeatedly overcome an urge, I found that I simply lost my former passion for all things sweet. Well, sort of.
It wasn’t all miraculous instant healthy diet. I discovered that I happily traded the overt sweet enticements for breads. It’s a whole other kind of sweet.
For whatever reason, probably more psychological than physiological, I eventually decided to relax my behavior and join the crowd in dessert at social gatherings. Now I occasionally put some ice creamy, chocolaty, crispy, crunchy, gooey, smooth and rich treats in my mouth that remind me of flavors I had almost forgotten about for a while there. But, for the most part, my current self-control usually results in pretty humble portions.
Except for Girl Scout cookies. Boxes of them. Just laying there. On the counter.
Arbitrary Lines
I’m guessing there wouldn’t be much argument to the idea that people perceive they have limitations even when no actual limitation exists. Some versions may even present as common phobias. We often hear people admit to a fear of something that is not necessarily a threat that deserves such focus. It is my belief that we each have the ability to make a decision that alters these limitations we allow to exist.
When I was young, I drank milk with pretty much anything I ate. Some foods, I felt it essential to have milk. Toast with peanut butter comes to mind. Then I suffered an episode of a kidney stone. Seems I wasn’t practicing advisable levels of hydration, especially given the high level of dairy products I consumed. I must say, pain is one heck of a motivator for change. I was advised to reduce my intake of all things calcium, and to drink more water. At the time, I literally believed it not possible to eat peanut butter toast without milk. I was wrong. In the end, I found the adjustment to be rather easy.
For much of my life, I wore a wrist watch. After I returned from a week of vacation one year, where I had been without my watch the whole wonderful time, I decided to try going without it when I resumed my regular routine. I found this change to be a little more difficult than not drinking milk with certain foods, but not by much. I used to believe that I could not get along without my wrist watch. Now I realize I can, and I do just fine sans wrist watch.
I used to be a pretty regular viewer of television news broadcasts. I grew up in a house where we watched the news to get a sense of things. I recall the dramatic feeling of being lost when I first moved out of the house where I grew up, to a place with no television. We solved that within days, and I maintained my fixation with television news for decades. Then, in similar fashion to my changing the habit of having worn a wrist watch, I came home from a vacation where I had not seen news for over a week and realized I was doing just fine without it. As a matter of fact, I felt a little bit better without it. The newscasters used to feel like part of my family. We watched their hairstyles change and listened to their chit-chat between stories, as if they were people we knew. I really like not knowing about them any more, and I don’t feel lost at all.
I seriously felt the possibility of changing these things was not only unlikely, but even ill-advised. But these were artificial boundaries I allowed myself to claim. And as such, I have all the power to choose to move and change them at any time. Next time you notice yourself clinging to something a little tighter than makes logical sense, consider the possibility it is a product of your own construct. You have the power to change those arbitrary lines to move yourself to a different place. Shoot, you could even obliterate them altogether.
When people talk about coloring outside the lines, the first thought is of the lines that are presented to us. But we also can choose to color outside the lines we create for ourselves. What would it take for you to become aware of the limits you are choosing to live within? They might not be as limiting as they seem, after all.
Days Gone By
Ah, the good old days. Not only do they not make things the way they used to, there are a lot of activities that we just don’t get to do anymore. I can remember the days we raked leaves into piles and burned them. It smelled great, …while it polluted the air. I don’t recall there having been warnings not to drink water from the garden hose. We did it all the time. We used to let our pets roam the neighborhood without a leash and I don’t recall anyone following their dog around with a bag and a scoop. Well, I guess there are still some people that don’t clean up after their pets to this day, based on the many piles appearing on my property –even though we don’t own a dog.
We used to get rides from strangers by hitchhiking. As kids, we were allowed to ride bikes without wearing helmets. We played around in the back of the station wagon without wearing seat belts.
I think most people have accepted these changes that have evolved over time without really expecting to be able to have things be the way they always were.
Sometimes, I wonder about some other activities of the past that people are still set on keeping alive. Take hunting, for example. In many families it is a big tradition. I can understand a desire to have things be the way they have always been. But as the population continues to swell, and wilderness shrinks due to development, there are more people eligible to hunt every year, and on a continually shrinking amount of available land. It gets harder and harder to maintain the family tradition in the manner it has historically been held. I’ve heard hunters argue that outsiders shouldn’t be allowed to hunt in areas where they have no history. There is a desire to maintain ones tradition, but this may be one of those activities that is destined to fade into the past.
I don’t expect hunting to go away completely, but I see it changing, most likely changing enough that it will become one of those things where the memory of the way it used to be done, hardly resembles what it will evolve into as it adapts to the 21st century world.
Although there are many who lament the changes that come with the passing of time, plenty of the changes are for the better. I remember a time when I couldn’t go out to hear music, or even watch a Vikings game at the old Met Stadium, without coming home smelling like an ash tray. Remember making ash trays out of clay in grade school as gifts for our parents? Ah, the good old days.
The Stuff of Goals
Sometimes it feels easier to try to change those around us than change ourselves. I think the route to affecting change in the ones we love is through changing our own thoughts and behaviors. It can upset the balance of an ingrained, often times dysfunctional pattern, when we do finally change our behaviors, and that new imbalance can be disorienting at first. Difficult, even. But long term success is a reward for those who follow through. We become healthier, and over time, our improving health influences those around us in a positive way. Good things are worth waiting for.
- Of value to someone, or trash?
Since I’ve returned from my trek in Nepal, I’m feeling even more motivated than before to follow through on a goal that I’ve been struggling with for quite a while. I want to distribute possessions that I’ve accumulated but no longer use. Aha! This reminds me of another of those messages that I heard once and it stuck with me ever since. I think it was a friend, Soma, that I met through the Twin Cities FreeNet, who told me she was distributing books from her collection to release the ‘energy’ of them back into the world. I love that thought and have considered it ever since. I like to think about the original author, obviously, composing the information with visions of a future audience receiving value from it, but also of the editors who worked on it, and the printer and binders who handled it. Even the people who cut trees or produced the paper. They all put their energy into creating that book. If it gets read once and then stored on the shelf, that energy becomes stagnant; trapped.
For some reason, I find myself thinking about returning the energy of stuff gathering dust in my house and garage, back into the world, an awful lot more than I find myself doing anything about it. I can consider my writing about it here another small step beyond just thinking about it; my first actual action toward doing something. Well, maybe that’s not entirely accurate. Last fall we signed on with a pest control service and were required to pull all the crap out of the garage to clean and assess the related pest issues. I put my hands on a lot of once perfectly useful stuff that now hasn’t been used in many years. It was a pretty good motivator. I cleaned up old stuff. I took pictures of stuff. I talked about listing it on eBay or Craigslist. Most impressively, I successfully placed what was more accurately identified as ‘trash’ into the proper receptacle; the one that gets dumped into a big truck each week.
Surely of value to someone. Now if I could only remember where I put it.
For a week or two after that, I even made good on a goal of finding something each week that was just taking up space here and deserved a ride in the big truck that comes through our neighborhood every Thursday. But that didn’t provide the feel-good result that is the reward of returning the energy force of those who produce products, back into the world. I want to decide if freecycle.org is a group for me and finish what I started toward posting ads on craigslist.org. I want to possess less stuff and I want to release the stagnant energy back into the world. I want to move from thinking and writing about it, to doing it. A worthy and deserving goal. Am I up to it? Sure. I’ve seen one of my sisters successfully disperse the majority of her accumulated possessions. Although, she had the added incentive of having sold their house to spend retirement living in a 5th-wheel trailer. I know it is possible. I’m just not clear yet on what time table I will finally make it happen for me.
Feel Free to Change
One day, a long time ago, my son –I think it was my son– told me I should drive a different route to work that morning, just for the change. I’ve heard similar suggestions, for a variety of purposes over the years, but for some reason, the suggestion that day is one that stuck with me. I don’t know why some basic messages resonate with me for a lifetime like this, or whether the same kind of thing happens for others. My high school football coach said, “If you can touch it, you can catch it.” –referring to either a defensive or offensive pass catching opportunity. I hear it in my mind as clear as the first time he said it. Other memorable messages that come to mind are of a bit more personal nature. Maybe remembering those kinds of messages is easier to understand. But this is really beside the point regarding change.
Try testing yourself with a variety of simple changes. Fold your arms with the opposite arm from your usual, placed on top. How does that feel? Clap your hands with the opposite hand from your normal habit, in the more superior orientation. Clasp your hands with your fingers intertwined as if you are begging or pleading for something, but slide the position one finger away from your regular grip. That is how easy it is to change. Sure it feels weird, uncomfortable even. But how hard was it to do, all things considered?
It is that easy to change many things in our lives. It is somewhat amazing how quickly we are able to adjust to the point of things not feeling so weird with a little repetition, too. And it is impressive how some basic changes of similar scope, can apply to our mental processes, as well. It all starts with recognition. When we pay attention to how we move and position our body, that awareness can lead to choices to do things differently. The same exercise applies to our thought patterns. When we make an effort to become aware of how we think, about situations, ourselves, or other people, then we have done the most important work toward allowing for opportunity to change. But first, we have to recognize our thinking, and that just may be the hardest part. I believe we are all incredible masters of deluding ourselves. And if we are slightly aware of the fact that we are doing this, we tend to become masters of justifying what we are up to.
We don’t have to continue to think about things in the same way we have for years before. I am doing ongoing work to recognize my negative self-talk and my pessimistic slant on potential situation outcomes. It’s powerful stuff. Another thing I have begun to practice a bit more of late is smiling for no apparent reason. I notice when people around me wear a grim look on their face, and that is not how I wish to appear. I have written here before about putting a smile before happiness and then happiness soon follows. I am all for it, and then when I appear less glum, I can look forward to soon feeling more happy. I’ve faced worse challenges.
Choosing to change, and to change for the better, is worthwhile exercise. One that supports my journey to optimal health, mind, body, and soul. It’s a message that deserves to get stuck in our heads, don’t you think?
Relative Something 