tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65251613795789840402024-03-13T10:20:54.171-04:00Unmapped CountryThe Flip Side of FailureHope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.comBlogger370125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-37279282740249557542022-07-03T12:19:00.000-04:002022-07-03T12:19:31.303-04:00Recovering from Total Failure <p> Hello, Readers,</p><p>It's been a bad week, hasn't it? I've been feeling demoralized and depressed. To counteract my despondency, I've discovered that I am actually in possession of a strategy to do just that. I mean, what else was this blog invented for but to explore alternatives to feeling like a failure? I've pulled together a few thoughts to get us all back up off the floor and posted on Psychology Today, so please <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unmapped-country/202207/recovering-total-failure-and-demoralization">CLICK HERE😀🙏</a> to read the rest! </p>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-89783091594624080962022-04-06T19:41:00.002-04:002022-04-06T19:41:55.449-04:00No Bad Parts: How My Shopping Obsession is Trying to Protect Me from Failure<p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> Hello, Readers, </span></p><p><span style="color: #2c2d30;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">A friend I hadn’t seen in a while asked me what I’ve been doing lately. I answered honestly: I told him that I have spent much of my time ordering clothes online and then returning them. My Saturday routine has become bundling up my too-small, too-big, too-dumb, wrong-style items and dropping them off at the UPS/USPS pick-up spot near me. It’s become an obsession.</span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #2c2d30; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLw-6uXwHdBE1K9uXh1eBSWf6yj2Bf3lJB8-LVgP4ZgfV8wO5Zygg7Zy9Av83V0b_8aQ-CCrhahOmIIP7jem7r3lUuEzLzsotGjS5-02Jvob70qn7yd1qmunz3SW9qWM32OxunQKYI17HkHmqJqI8Svu0Z0-s2ueuszOFW9blfkf9835uPIBvDf_14/s3088/IMG_5667.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3088" data-original-width="2316" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLw-6uXwHdBE1K9uXh1eBSWf6yj2Bf3lJB8-LVgP4ZgfV8wO5Zygg7Zy9Av83V0b_8aQ-CCrhahOmIIP7jem7r3lUuEzLzsotGjS5-02Jvob70qn7yd1qmunz3SW9qWM32OxunQKYI17HkHmqJqI8Svu0Z0-s2ueuszOFW9blfkf9835uPIBvDf_14/s320/IMG_5667.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="color: #2c2d30;">I have scrolled through so many clothing retail sites I know their entire inventories.</span><p></p><p><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unmapped-country/202204/no-bad-parts-key-success" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-size: medium;">CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST, PLEASE!</span></a></p>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-4839262236568410402022-01-18T15:41:00.003-05:002022-01-18T16:32:17.340-05:00Success in AP2—It’s More Than Coping, but Coping is Also Great, Really. I Promise.<p>Happy New Year, Readers. It’s been so long since I posted to you, I think my chin hairs have turned into a beard. (Shhh, forget I said that; it’s supposed to remain only between me and my esthetician.)</p><p>In this new year, Annus Pandemicus 2 (AP2), I offer a couple of tips for success. They’re not mine, originally, Readers, but I’ve incorporated them into my life after so many years of seeking and redefining success that they seem to be mine. In other words, I am probably plagiarizing, but I can’t remember from whose work. Along the way, I have encountered many teachers, gurus, and charlatans offering their worked-over or reworked bits of universally available wisdom. Home truths, if you will. They have managed to publish and profit from these things, unlike me, but hey, this isn’t a post about bitterness. It’s a post about the opposite of bitterness, which is, of course, sweetness. </p><p><b>What makes life sweet?</b> Have you seen the four seasons of “The Good Place” on Netflix? I recommend. <i><b>Friends, family, self-confidence, generosity, striving to be better, and believing it is possible to be so. These are some of the things that make life sweet. </b></i>More on that another day, mayhap. Or, if you stop reading here, then maybe you’ve got a little something, a nugget, a kernel to hold onto and work over, something to try to unwedge from your teeth.</p><p>I have really enjoyed my break from school. I have to say, it was an absolute pleasure to be done with required reading until the middle of January. During the break, I happened upon a book called <i>The Five Invitations</i> by Frank Ostaseki, a Zen Buddhist who started the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco in the late 1980s. The Zen Hospice grew out of the San Francisco Zen Center, which, Readers, I visited back in the late 1980s, when I lived in SF. So I almost know Frank. Maybe if I’d actually attended regular meditations at the SF Zen Center, I would literally know Frank. Unfortunately, at the time, I was intimidated by the austerity of the setting and by the little I knew about Zen, so it was another ten years before I got around to meditating. </p><p>What attracted me to the book is that back in 2020, when the paterfamilias was still alive but was starting to fail, my friend loaned me a large bag of books about death and dying that she and her mother had read when her mother was dying. I didn’t read any of the books she loaned me, because the paterfamilias failing was something I didn’t really want to <i>grok</i>, if you know what I mean. So the bag sat around for a long time. Eventually, during a culling of our over-full bookcases, I asked the husband to take all the books we were donating to the big donation bin at the library and he accidentally donated the entire bag of books on death and dying that my friend had loaned me. </p><p>These books had significance for my friend, because her mother had been reading them in preparation for her own death, and now, in the way of books and people, her mother was gone and the books had remained. I felt terrible. So did the husband.</p><p>I’ll just fast-forward to say that my friend is still my friend. She took a philosophical stance about the lost books. She said, maybe now they’re being read by other people who really need to think about death and dying. </p><p>Who doesn’t? I ask you. </p><p>I have to add that I did my utmost to try to recover the books, but it was a no-go. So over the last couple of years, I have kept an eye out for books about death to give to my friend. </p><p>This brings me to <i>The Five Invitations</i>, whose subtitle is “Discovering what death can teach us about living fully.” Since I’ve broadened my definition of success to include things like “well-being” and “living fully,” this seemed up the ole alley. And you know, a successful death is part of a successful life. </p><p>What are the 5 invitations? In brief, they are as follows: </p><p>One, Don’t wait; </p><p>Two, welcome everything, push away nothing; </p><p>Three, Bring your whole self to the experience; </p><p>Four, Find a place of rest in the middle of things; and </p><p>Five, Cultivate don’t know mind. </p><p>These invitations are essentially the invitation of all meditation practices, the invitation to be present in your own life as it happens, without adding to your misery by trying to prevent or feeling shame about the bad times, and without expecting that life is meant to be always great. Agathism has to take a back seat to reality. Things don’t necessarily always get better. That’s just the way it be. On the other hand, in the midst of any particular moment in life, the possibility exists for feeling pretty okay. As Jon Kabat-Zinn said, <b>any time you’re breathing, more things are going well for you than not. </b></p><p>Did I say this was post about sweetness? Well, I want to talk about the idea of <b>rest</b>. Rest, the fourth invitation, is a kind of sweetness. The sweetness of letting go and just letting the shoulders settle, of shutting the door and enjoying a quiet moment at home. </p><p>This idea of resting in the midst of upheaval seems particularly appealing, probably because I’ve been working myself hard in school, while grieving the paterfamilias and the end of civilization as we knew it. While some of my friends have announced a theme word for the year such as “improve” or “strive” or “persist,” I’m drawn to “rest.” Rest does not mean pulling the blanket over your head and waking up when the revolution is over, mind you. It means to find the center—your center—in the midst of upset, busyness, excitement, and goal-pursuit. Rest in the middle of striving, if you will. This is also known, less glamorously, as coping. And coping is really a great approach to life. Coping requires rest. </p><p>So what is rest? There are different kinds of rest. </p><p>There’s the rest from being awake, also known as sleep. That's <b>physical rest</b>. We are programmed to do this every day for about eight hours. For those of us who sometimes experience less than optimal nighttime sleep, the twenty-minute snoozle is a brilliant restorative in the middle of a day. Physical rest of the body. Obviously essential. </p><p>There’s <b>the rest that is residing in the moment</b>. I hesitate to write about this, because it has become a cliché among certain types of people. But there is rest in focusing on the present. Sitting still, taking a breath, and being aware of your body breathing in and exhaling. There’s rest in that, and that kind of rest is super important. Why? Because it gives you a little patch from which to observe what’s ricocheting around in your head and how that ricocheting material affects how you respond outwardly to other people. Do you find yourself swearing at a slow driver? Take a sec, realize that what’s happening now is you’re reacting because you’re late, you rushed, you didn’t take time to prepare. It’s nothing to do with the slow driver, really. </p><p>A rest is a pause, a cessation of activity, and pretty much everything wise comes from actions taken from that pause. </p><p>There’s a concept I’ve learned in therapist school called <b>Wise Mind</b>. </p><p><i><b>Wise Mind is the place you want to learn to use as your base of operations when interacting with others.</b></i> Wise Mind is the overlapping on the Venn Diagram of Emotion Mind and Rational Mind. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh0ojoU7UAcFKSsx8mL_QXJ2b9mc3aZr749B546WSAbGeyhGKH1PI8C2QBk9oPIdZTaa86kFkmdJTa5u9QidL8pQrWqBM8_vMpZAnegijQWOj6CVQcaxyVGaEv4yPe9qNNI12zY3NfU_PgLzYhM_j3tO3pNO0h_HbS_dv5gqS5DVNnPXZSDwOcCp84J=s853" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="853" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh0ojoU7UAcFKSsx8mL_QXJ2b9mc3aZr749B546WSAbGeyhGKH1PI8C2QBk9oPIdZTaa86kFkmdJTa5u9QidL8pQrWqBM8_vMpZAnegijQWOj6CVQcaxyVGaEv4yPe9qNNI12zY3NfU_PgLzYhM_j3tO3pNO0h_HbS_dv5gqS5DVNnPXZSDwOcCp84J=w400-h270" title="BunnyPG, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons" width="400" /></a></div>(BunnyPG, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons )<br /><p><br /></p><p>Whereas emotional mind has you deeply in touch with your emotions, when you’re in that state, you’re not acting with any rationality. Likewise, when you’re in rational mind, you’re not taking emotions into account. This is how we get into overwork and burnout, and how we make decisions that railroad over the feelings and needs of others and of ourselves. Wise Mind combines the best of rational and emotional states. But you have to practice getting there. The best way to do that is to rest, to pause, to settle into the present moment, and to observe all the things that are ricocheting around you, internally and externally. </p><p>(Wise Mind, by the way, is a term coined by Marsha Lineham, who developed a kind of therapy called DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) to treat people with major issues in relating to others. Guess where some of her ideas came from? Buddhism and mindfulness. Her therapy helps people learn social and interpersonal skills in conjunction with talk therapy.)</p><p>How do you get to Wise Mind? Practice, practice, practice. More specifically, you get to Wise Mind by taking a rest in the moment, pausing to observe what is going on with you. There’s the rest from accepting whatever situation in which you happen to find yourself. Are you in the above scenario? Why make it worse by getting even more agitated about being late? Why berate yourself or others? Why not take a moment, accept that this is what’s happening: you are rushing, it happens; next time, perhaps you can plan better, but maybe you are doing the best you can because maybe something came up, right as you were getting ready to leave. The point is, rest in the uncomfortable truth, and it alleviates some of the your discomfort. There’s <b>the rest in not piling on guilt or a sense of shoulda-coulda-woulda</b> to a difficult situation. </p><p>There’s <b>rest that means acceptance</b>. This is the <b>rest of letting-go</b>. This rest means accepting what is happening when you can’t control it, for one thing. It also means accepting yourself, with all your foibles, is another. Are you the type to get your proverbial panties in a twist over stuff that doesn’t stress out most of the people you know? Don’t make yourself feel worse by should-ing yourself about not being so uptight. Just own it, you are uptight. This has its good and bad aspects, doesn’t it? Maybe all those laid-back others in your life depend on you to think of the details. So, accept that aspect of yourself. Radical self-acceptance, baby. If you remove the layer of non-acceptance of what is, you have a better chance of seeing clearly. Maybe there’s something a bit pathological about your need to control, but you’re not going to be able to change it without looking right at it. You’ve got to rest with it. Rest with it before you wrest with it. </p><p>I couldn’t resist the pun.</p><p>Rest can be as accessible as a sigh. At any time, a deep breath provides an instant of rest. It’s not necessary to wait for a vacation to rest. What is necessary is to rest a little bit every day. As my final semester of graduate school ramps up, I plan to remember to rest more, so I can operate from Wise Mind and cope with the vicissitudes of AP2. Bring on the variants! </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-58249919355490826782021-07-27T12:22:00.017-04:002021-07-27T17:59:44.467-04:00How to Break the Anxiety-Worry Habit; Handling Uncertainty, another Musing on Impermanence in the Form of Uncertainty.<p>Readers, how do you feel about dental work?</p><p>As I write, I sit here with a modern poultice of clove in my tooth. Yes, I said poultice, as in the old-fashioned plaster poultice that is so often applied to injuries and wounds in nineteenth-century English literature. In Jane Austen, for example. Mustard plasters and poultices were the go-to’s for first aid back then. Well, Readers, I have endured some dental work involving medicated cement in place of an old filling. This is known technically as a temporary filling, but I prefer poultice. Having dental work always strikes me as a close cousin of the barbaric practices of yore. In other words, it is something to be avoided. </p><p>However, I was unable to avoid a particular jaw & tooth situation, which may have been (definitely WAS) created by the pandemic: jaw clenching. Clenching led, apparently, to some difficulty with a filling. You don’t need details, and really, I apologize for this much detail. Who needs it? It’s not even the point of my blog post.</p><p>As I prepared for this feat of bravery—sitting in the dentist’s chair and allowing him to perform his barbaric art upon my mouth—I thought about a recent article in Psychology Today magazine by Judson Brewer, M.D., Ph.D., professor at Brown University and clinician. His basic idea is that anxiety and worry are a habit created by a continuous feedback loop. A habit is a conditioned response, as we all know from Psych 101 or just hearing about Pavlov’s dog hearing a bell, getting a treat and salivating at the expected pleasure, over and over until just hearing the bell would stimulate the dog to salivate. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--HLpx1y9Qsc/YQBZjxx3FKI/AAAAAAAAC00/wM6JbTdq-rcwn5xq5HCzsw2RdIQMxm3AACNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_4853.HEIC" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--HLpx1y9Qsc/YQBZjxx3FKI/AAAAAAAAC00/wM6JbTdq-rcwn5xq5HCzsw2RdIQMxm3AACNcBGAsYHQ/w300-h400/IMG_4853.HEIC" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These are not Pavlov's dogs</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p>A habit of anxiety and worry is also a conditioned response. You feel anxious, so you worry—worry and anxiety are two different things. Brewer built his research on that of Borkovec in the 1980s, who discovered and posited that there is an element of habit in anxiety. Anxiety is a physical sensation; the sensation triggers worrying (stimulus and response), and that responding over and over to the anxiety sensation creates the habit of the <b>anxiety-worry cycle</b>. </p><p><b>trigger-behavior-reward</b></p><p>The apparent glitch in this theory is that worrying is rewarding. Do you find worrying rewarding? Well, Brewer says, in a certain way, worrying IS rewarding. Because anxiety is about uncertainty; we feel anxious when things are uncertain. Worrying is the response and it is reinforced because <b>when we’re worrying we kind of feel like we’re doing something to address the uncertainty. </b></p><p>Anyone who’s been in therapy—and there should be more of us, if you ask me, but then that’s the business I’m going into—has probably encountered a gentle admonition from their therapist that worrying about, say, the state of the world, makes you feel like you can control it. Or worrying, say, about your daughter driving a twelve-year-old car up and down the Eastern Seaboard, can keep her safe. We know, rationally, the worrying doesn’t do anything; but worrying becomes its own talisman. We’re afraid to let it go, because frankly, when it comes to daughters or the environment, there’s not much we can control. </p><p>The <b>good news is that this anxiety-worry habit can be broken</b>. Judson Brewer, M.D., Ph.D, argues that we modern humans don’t need to feel much anxiety and worry. It’s not helpful. Contrary to popular belief it doesn’t keep us sharp and on our toes. It actually makes us feel scattered and creates difficulty concentrating and performing. So we should definitely not be proud of our intense stressed states. We should get out of the habit of having them. This is the stuff of CBT—cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT helps us identify our automatic, negative thoughts. Once we identify them, we can choose different thoughts. </p><p>So, according to Brewer, the <b>first step is to recognize that worrying is actually not rewarding</b>. It is the opposite of rewarding. It is unrewarding. It makes you preoccupied. It makes you lose sight of your day and your time and your personal goals. It makes you wrinkled, grey, and old. Okay, no, that’s not true and Brewer didn’t say it. Life does that to you, if you’re lucky (a topic for a different day, perhaps). But anyway, worrying is a waste of time and energy and really doesn’t help hold up the world. This Atlas theory of world-holding by worry just exhausts us. The world will spin even if we don’t worry. Daughters will drive unreliable cars. Life seems predictable until it isn’t and then we feel uncertain. Even if we worry. And even if we don’t. </p><p>What a concept. We don’t need to worry. It’s not helpful. In fact, it’s hurtful. This is news to me. I am happy to look at this in a new way. </p><p>Now, anxiety is a different story. Anxiety is a natural, primitive brain response to uncertainty. (Again, paraphrasing Brewer). So <b>the next step in breaking the anxiety-worry habit is to respond to anxiety with something that actually is rewarding</b>. Brewer suggests that getting mindfully curious about the sensation of anxiety is one option. I am sure there are others, but that’s what I have for you for now.</p><p>Before making the dental appointment, I was full of anxiety about this tooth and this ache and what it was going to lead to. I was so anxious and worried about it that I had to really work my courage up before making the call. Once I had made the call, and Svetlana in Dr. L’s office called me back, I had much less anxiety. This was because, Readers, mindful that uncertainty triggers anxiety and worry, I did the strangely logical thing and asked Svetlana what the heck was going to happen when I got there for my appointment. Armed with as much info as I could tolerate, I headed to my appointment. Since I had spoken to Svetlana, I had much less uncertainty about what was going to happen. As I drove, I noticed that I didn’t feel terribly anxious. I noted that perhaps I felt a bit <b>nervous</b>, but I wasn’t <b>worried</b>. Because I knew what was going to happen. It wasn’t uncertain. </p><p>Of course, a moment later, I did start to think that perhaps being neither anxious nor worried was the sign of impending doom, lamb to the slaughter type thing; the unsuspecting woman headed to disaster. My mind traveled to a scenario involving me in the dreaded chair, numbed up and hearing Dr.L say, “Oh dear, I didn’t expect this and now I must drill through your jawbone and attach a wire to keep your lower jaw on your head and by the way you have no more tooth in that spot at all, oopsie.” However, Readers, I have been around many blocks in my many years and I recognized this as a habitual anxiety loop starting up. Because I noticed it, I was able to stop it. Mostly. Remember, it takes time to form and reform a habit. I am not saying I felt completely happy about the coming procedure, but I didn’t feel anxious, just nervous. Nervous is an appropriate, alert state response. </p><p>After that was a blur of Novocaine and trying to picture myself on a beach watching dogs frolic, and then the scent of clove wafted into my nose. Sure, my tongue now feels like a hot dog and my lips are like potato rolls. And I am sipping a chai latte through a (contraband, evil) straw trying not to let any liquid dribble out. But overall, things weren’t so bad, because I didn’t make them worse by my habit of anxiety and worry. </p><p>Worrying is a kind of holding-on. Worrying is about desiring, usually desiring the prevention of a bad outcome. We all know desiring is the root of suffering. Desiring something over and over and over doesn’t make that thing more likely. It simply reinforces the sense of lack, the wanting in the old-fashioned definition of the word wanting. Wanting means desiring and also lacking. Letting go of thinking things should feel or be different than they are is key to just relaxing in life. Letting go of worry is a habit to establish now. </p><p>Or so they say. It’s much easier said than done. However, practicing letting go of worry by becoming curious about how anxiety feels seems doable. </p><p>We all want things to be certain, predictable, and permanent. Too bad, us. In fact, according to an article I read called "Decolonizing Social Work," permanence is a Western value. </p><p>Do I believe anxiety doesn’t have to exist? That it’s evolutionary trash that should be incinerated? Uncertainty is a cousin of impermanence, and we know how we struggle with impermanence. Uncertainty can make you twitchy. You are always on edge. It creates fear of loss, according to Kahnemann and Tversky, and humans fear loss more than we enjoy winning, supposedly. So, yeah, we value permanence. And yeah, we are out of luck, because what we get is just the opposite. </p><p>Lots of ocean and swimming metaphors surface around this topic. <i>Plus ca change the plus they remain the same </i>is that old French adage, isn’t it? Being certain amidst uncertainty, understanding in a visceral way that everything is always changing can be its own kind of certainty, can’t it? This is the goal of the enlightened, I suppose. We befriend our anxiety in a non-clinging sort of way and maybe it’ll fade away. But we never lose our edge, we’re always having to make some minor adjustments to stay afloat. That’s the metaphor. That’s the truth. However, we don’t have to worry about it. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tpPLz8AfgwM/YQAu8fD_WZI/AAAAAAAAC0s/uCsk0BPpSTgsro41ahndJv5LpHnCMNLOwCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_4860.HEIC" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tpPLz8AfgwM/YQAu8fD_WZI/AAAAAAAAC0s/uCsk0BPpSTgsro41ahndJv5LpHnCMNLOwCNcBGAsYHQ/w300-h400/IMG_4860.HEIC" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We can all feel as peaceful as this scene. With practice. Lots of practice. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-69025011679493689012021-06-25T11:30:00.000-04:002021-06-25T11:30:09.102-04:00Musings on Impermanence: Annals of Success and Life<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span> </span>Readers, I am a creature of habit. I like to eat the same breakfast from the same bowl and drink the same coffee from the same mugs. I have done this on the regular, as they say, for quite some time. Now, I sometimes change my habits, but for the last several years, I have eaten the same breakfast nearly every day (steel-cut oats). And mid-morning, I drink a cup of coffee. I use the same lovely, handmade mug, of a set of two, given to the husband and me for our wedding. And I use the Moomintroll bowl given to the 19-year-old some time ago by her uncle—the Moominbowl. Indeed, that bowl was given to the 19-year-old so long ago, I had conveniently forgotten that, technically, the bowl was not mine; she reminded me not long ago that she would be taking that bowl with her when she moves out—a startling reminder of more than one truth, if I am completely honest. Daily, unless the dishwasher cycle prevented me, I reached for the bowl, I reached for the mug. </span></div><p></p><div><div><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One morning, I reached for the mug, and I thought to myself, <i>Self, we have had these two mugs for a very long time, as long as the husband and I have been married, and they are unique mugs and special, and isn’t it amazing that they have lasted this long.</i> </div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>Well, Readers, you are all clever, so you know what happened. It didn’t happen exactly next, but it happened soon after. Having survived seven moves, two children, one dog, and the arrival of two puppies, one of the two mugs went kaput. </div><div><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div><div><span> </span>I once had a housemate who referred to precious objects as “on preservation.” Her precious objects were somewhat dubious in quality. A broken teapot, for example, was on preservation. As were some quite worn items of clothing. She fully embraced <i>wabi-sabi</i>. But, and here again, I must be honest, I totally understood what she meant. “On preservation” meant worn or used almost to not wearable or useable anymore; since the object was beloved, though, she would mete out the times she used the thing, so it would last longer. I realized that I did the same thing. Combined with my other propensity to hold off on using something new, almost until I forgot I had it, so it would always be new, this meant the period of using an object freely and without concern was truncated at either end by anxiety about keeping the thing. </div><div><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div><div><span> </span>However, since that time of the slightly nutty but enjoyable roommate, I have tried to take to heart my Aunt Wisdom’s maxim about things: Don’t Pickle It. I have written about this maxim before. It reminds me that a thing is a thing and it’s only of use if I use it. So enjoy it. Use it. Appreciate it. </div><div><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div><div><span> </span>Shortly after dropping one of the precious mugs, I reached for the Moominbowl. Ever since the 19-year-old mentioned taking that bowl with her when she leaves home, I had thought about that statement and felt, maybe, a frisson of guilt mixed with a soupçon of devil-may-care as I prepared my oatmeal in it. Perhaps that is why shortly after the mug bit it, the bowl dove to the floor and smashed itself into smithereens. </div><div><br /></div><div><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On Preservation and Don’t Pickle It are two approaches to dealing with something unbearable about life: things don’t last. Life is impermanent. Don’t Pickle It is probably the healthier approach; you enjoy a thing until it’s worn out, and then let it go. On Preservation is about hanging on to it, probably past its usefulness. </div><div><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div><div><span> </span>Let us not forget Save It Forever, which is the dumbest of all, for reasons so obvious I don’t need to elaborate them. Do I? A girl I knew in fourth grade got a birthday cake in the shape of a heart that was decorated so beautifully she didn’t want to eat it. They put it on the mantel and let it sit there. I don’t know for how long. Maybe her brother’s boa constrictor ate it after he got loose. I didn’t go to her house after that. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pp1ojIADVdA/YNX1nHlXiNI/AAAAAAAACzs/CCEw7lJOzsg5Xzd6sjWhwnTwHDMG33o9wCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_4720.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="261" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pp1ojIADVdA/YNX1nHlXiNI/AAAAAAAACzs/CCEw7lJOzsg5Xzd6sjWhwnTwHDMG33o9wCNcBGAsYHQ/w336-h261/IMG_4720.HEIC" width="336" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old mug, new Moominbowl</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>Now that I’m down to one mug of the pair, I am tempted by <b>on preservation</b>. The Moominbowl was irreplaceable, I discovered to my guilt; however, I found a very nice substitute, same size, same shape, different images. It took about eight hours for the 19-year-old to notice the new bowl when she returned for the summer. I think twice before using it, but I still do. Not every day, though.</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>The point is, we get attached to things, and sometimes the attachment is out of proportion. Attachment is what relationships are made of, but so is change and impermanence. To successfully navigate life, we have to come to terms with this paradox. My way is not especially unique or healthy. However, I know a couple of things. Habits are important because they make life easy; they also give it a kind of permanence. This is reassuring, unless the habits become rigid or obsessive, used to ward off thinking about things like impermanence and change and how scary those things can feel. A cake should be eaten. A shirt should be worn. A teapot that is broken? Unless you have the pieces and can repair them with gold and turn it into kintsugi, it should be allowed to go. Even then, you will have to say goodbye to it someday. </div></div><div><br /></div>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-77006632226090563262021-05-21T11:25:00.006-04:002021-05-21T11:37:45.869-04:00Annals of Social Work and Life<p>Did I mention that the husband and I acquired two puppies? Maybe not, because there have been moments of sincere regret about that decision, and I don't know about you, Readers, but when I regret a decision, I also feel ashamed and embarrassed. Fortunately, those moments are becoming more widely separated than they were, and the puppies are growing up. Also, I have completed my first year of my Master's in Social Work and have the summer mostly off. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vpMqc-3YKIo/YKa4WAHDYKI/AAAAAAAACxI/-0gnulsDtv0AYiR_dBMorW0wNyq5T2mGQCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_3970.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vpMqc-3YKIo/YKa4WAHDYKI/AAAAAAAACxI/-0gnulsDtv0AYiR_dBMorW0wNyq5T2mGQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_3970.HEIC" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span> School is on my mind, still. Here's my latest post for Psychology Today. Please click below and read it so my editor there will promote my piece! </span><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unmapped-country/202105/have-we-resolved-social-works-identity-crisis" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Have We Resolved Social Work's Identity Crisis? </span></b></a></p><p><span><br /></span></p>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-45590184691522440272021-04-05T09:33:00.000-04:002021-04-05T09:33:05.562-04:00Annals of Pandemic Life--The Paterfamilias and a New Post on Psychology Today<p> Hello, Readers. I have been behind on my blog. The reasons are various, including being busy, busy with school and overwhelmed with housebreaking two puppies—what was I thinking? I was thinking about how fun it will be when they’re trained, and not about how much work is involved in training them AND going to graduate school at the same time. </p><p>Also, I have been avoiding writing because I have to put in words the sad truth that the Paterfamilias is no more. He died on December 29th, of old age and complications of COVID-19. I am grieving. Of course I am. The anger over how he died—alone in the hospital, very hard to reach by phone or Zoom, is with me. What can I say about a 95-year-old man who died other than he had a long life, a mostly good life, a life with some tragedy and much joy, and he was my father. I am now an orphan. </p><p>It’s not a tragedy that he died. We all must die, and he did not die before his time. That would be a tragedy. But how he died was tragic. Alone, isolated, frustrated, and afraid, as so many people have had to die this year. Even when loved ones were nearby and prepared, they couldn’t reach their hospitalized ones. They were trying, like me and my sister the psychoanalyst, to reach their parent by phone, by Zoom, and finding themselves baffled at every turn by difficulty communicating, even if we did manage to get through. That was tragic, to not be with the paterfamilias in the hospital to hold his hand and keep him company. </p><p>Nevertheless, there it is. He is not. Life is going on, and I have a new blog post up on Psychology Today that I am sharing with you here. It’s about finding my identity in a profession that is having an identity crisis. Ah, the irony. Please click the link below to finish reading it on the Psychology Today website. The more views the editors see my post get, the better for me. Please continue reading below and click on the highlighted text to finish to post. </p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Social Work's Identity Crisis--And Mine</span></b></p><p>I began writing this blog to help me figure how to define myself as a successful person when I had experienced very little of what the world considers success for an individual. And by world I mean my own part of the world, the world of educated professionals. I was not a professional, despite my education, and this ate at me most fiercely. I washed up on the shores of Regret and Should’ve, questioning my focus on writing novels and on being a mother. Worthy endeavors, but I couldn’t see them that way, because they didn’t amount to resumé entries. They were not professional success. I became something of a psychologist-manque, reading up on success and flourishing and goals, steeping in the tea of Positive Psychology and serving it up to you, entertaining myself and others with my forays. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unmapped-country/202103/social-works-identity-crisis-and-mine" target="_blank">Please click here to continue reading</a></span></b></p>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-4427717814692665292020-12-17T16:02:00.001-05:002020-12-17T16:04:28.107-05:00Tips from Pantone on Optimism and Strength: Success in Tunnel and Out <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-BBTq4eD_5OY/X9u3dSKkMlI/AAAAAAAACqs/H-XFqNJ2ZYEEHNKJ6LU5qnSkKYMXriAhgCNcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="204" data-original-width="204" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-BBTq4eD_5OY/X9u3dSKkMlI/AAAAAAAACqs/H-XFqNJ2ZYEEHNKJ6LU5qnSkKYMXriAhgCNcBGAsYHQ/image.png" width="240" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-k3rh9CsF5Tc/X9u3kPY-KrI/AAAAAAAACqw/ykfB-3B9LDsAMahsvz8DiV3ysLCPYrr6QCNcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="204" data-original-width="204" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-k3rh9CsF5Tc/X9u3kPY-KrI/AAAAAAAACqw/ykfB-3B9LDsAMahsvz8DiV3ysLCPYrr6QCNcBGAsYHQ/image.png" width="240" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>Did you know every year there is an official color? Indeed there is, and the announcement is met with some fanfare in the world of design. The Pantone Color Institute picks it and names it. This year’s color of the year is actually two colors, Ultimate Gray and Illuminating. That’s grey and yellow to you and me. The colors were chosen together because they create contrast and balance. Things being what they are, I guess even paint company employees are looking for answers to our current predicament. “The selection of two independent colors highlight how different elements come together to express a message of strength and hopefulness that is both enduring and uplifting, conveying the idea that it’s not about one color or one person, it’s about more than one,” said Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute, in a press release.*</p><p>Readers, I never thought I’d be passing on success tips from Pantone, but I find inspiration where I must. Optimism and strength are “two characteristics that are needed as we enter the new year,” according to the author, Nicoletta Richardson, of Pantone's colors.* Because things right now are very hard and dark. You know, we’re <i>in</i> it. The days have a ways to go to the shortest one, so we’re still tunneling down and we can’t expect that little upturn that means we’re going to make it out to sunlight again until then. The too short, too dark, too cloudy days. We know they’re going to get longer soon, though, and that does bolster the mood. However, as Kate McKinnon said on “Saturday Night Live Weekend Update” last weekend, it’s well and good to see the light at the end of the tunnel,“It’s just that the light at the end of the tunnel has shown us how stinky and bad the tunnel is.” What’s in my tunnel right now, aside from the wider world of politics and incomprehensibly stupid people, is the paterfamilias with COVID-19, alone in the hospital, in a city far away. Not that distance matters at the moment, because visitors aren’t allowed. </p><p>On the side of Count Your Blessings is that he has a bed, he doesn’t need a ventilator, and he has enough energy to complain. On the side of Life is Infuriating, Hard, and Scary is the government’s murderous response to this pandemic means my 95 year old father is alone in the hospital with a disease he never needed to have. </p><p>Okay, so what do we do? We gotta get through the tunnel. This blog is about success, at least putatively. Success is sometimes just plodding along. Indeed, often it is just taking that next step. How’re you doing, I would ask my stepmother, as she descended from sharp-witted lawyer to demented old woman. Oh, still putting one foot in front of the other, she would say. It’s what we have to do. </p><p>But what can I do? Anne Lamott would say, do what we do: tend to the sick; feed the hungry; cheer the sad; practice self-care. My social work professors are big on self-care, too. What do you do for self-care, they all ask. Perhaps they know something. Perhaps we should listen. </p><p>Of course, in times of stress, self-care gets de-prioritized. Okay, so here’s a tip. Don’t beat yourself up about that. Just promise to practice it more when things are better. That way, you’ll establish your practice, whatever it may be, and if it’s a habit, you might stick to it the next time a crisis rolls around. Or not. It’s not perfect. You’re not perfect. Meanwhile, whenever you remember to practice self-care, do so. </p><p>Meanwhile, what to do about the outrage? That’s a good one. The answer, of course, is feel it if you feel it. Feel it if you feel it, and try not to get caught up in it. </p><p>Because I’m only passing on wisdom, not generating it, at least not at this time, I offer this tidbit from Professor Bonnie Duran of the Schools of Social Work and Public Health at University of Washington, who offers a six word mantra to get you through a bad day: Not perfect, not permanent, not personal. (<a href="https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/bonnie-duran-300">https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/bonnie-duran-300</a>)</p><p>Let that sink in for a moment. You can apply it to many things, but if you’re one to get caught up in the political moment, or to get whipped into a frenzy by covid numbers, or to wring your hands because the reforms you want aren’t happening fast enough or in the right way, just take a breath and remember, nothing is perfect, it’s not personal, and it’s not permanent. </p><p>These people who are so incomprehensible to me, they make sense to themselves. It’s not about you; for them it’s about them. It’s not personal. As far as perfect, nothing is perfect. So remember that your idea for fixing the world may be great, but it’s not perfect. Nor is the world perfect. So all solutions once we get out of the tunnel will be imperfect. It’s not personal that everyone else doesn’t immediately grasp your great idea as the best solution. It’s just inevitable. Machinery as klunky as the human cooperative society is never going to move smoothly in one direction. Move it does, however. Remember, it’s not permanent. Now the more Fred Flintstone feet we get moving in the same direction, the more definite the direction and the movement will be, but still, there will always be other feet walking at a different pace or in a different direction. Maybe it's going a direction you like, and maybe it's not. Either way, it’s not permanent. </p><p>This brings me to the next point. We can’t give up. Just because life is hard, doesn’t mean we give up. When it comes time to give inspiration, I can’t turn to faith. Sure, humor, sure wisdom (sometimes), sure honesty—I can do those. Faith, though? Faith in humanity I have to some degree. I tend to skew towards faith that people overall are good, that most want to be good and do good. </p><p>What I can put faith in is the power of purpose. I get that from Viktor Frankl. In <i>Man’s Search For Meaning</i> he drives home that to survive an existential crisis, a person must find a meaning and purpose to her life. Sometimes the purpose is simply to endure suffering. Bleak as it sounds, it is also a testament to hope. As Frankl worked himself nearly to death at Auschwitz, he told himself his job was to endure the suffering he confronted. We are close to the end of the tunnel, but we know that the light outside is pretty dim, and there’s a lot of scary stuff out there, too, with which we’re going to have to cope. Not perfect, not personal, not permanent helps with suffering, too. </p><p>Maybe this post doesn’t seem that optimistic. Maybe there’s a paucity of Illuminating, or is it Ultimate Gray? I guess to that point I say this: it takes both strength and optimism to face the tunnel. “It is possible to practice the art of living, even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent,” says Viktor Frankl, and he should know. </p><p>It takes strength and optimism to crawl forward in the dark and believe in the light at the end, and it takes strength and optimism to look at what’s in the tunnel, too. Here's Frankl once more, “…everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Sometimes the most optimistic thing I can muster is the knowledge that I will feel it once again. </p><p>It’s what I have, today, Readers. That’s it.</p><p>*https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/pantone-2021-color-of-the-year-36853569</p><p>Frankl, Viktor. <i>Man's Search for Meaning</i>. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. (1959).</p>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-18732140847856502582020-10-23T15:54:00.005-04:002020-10-23T20:54:53.102-04:00Annals of Pandemic Life: Mere Days Before the Election<p>Where is everyone? And by Everyone I mean all the wonderful bloggers who used to have joyful or irreverent or informative-but-on-rather-privileged-subjects blogs. Like fashion. Happiness. Shit like that. </p><p>Oh, I know where they are. Under their beds. They're trying to figure out if they can write a post about something unserious during these serious days. </p><p>And what serious days these are.</p><p>The state of things is this way. To wit, I wake up with a new toothache every day. I been clenching at night. M’jaw. Mostly on the left side, because it’s always m’left side with me. Traveling ache from top to bottom, way back to partially back. </p><p>I always wonder the same things: have I cracked a tooth yet? Should I call the dentist and complete my transformation to middle age with a mouth guard? I wish I had more teeth. Why oh why did the orthodontists back in my childhood like to pull out s’many g’damn teeth? If Rump is re-elected, I am going to need a full set of implant chompers. </p><p>Then I proceed through my day. </p><p>But, listen, I have to be honest. Glennon Doyle, in her wonderful and inspiring latest memoir, <i>Untamed</i>, emphasizes the need to be honest with oneself and with others, so I am being honest. Here it is. Often I wake up and discover that not just m’jaw is clenched, m’whole body is rigid. Like absolutely rigid with tension. My hands are clenched in fists, my entire torso like it has rigor mortis. </p><p style="text-align: left;">It is fortunate that I have over twenty years’ meditation and yoga experience to help me </p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>become mindful of this rigidity, and </li><li>relax m’musculature so that I can get out of bed. </li></ol><p></p><p>I would love to get a massage, but—COVID. I would love to go out for a leisurely lunch with friends, but--COVID. </p><p>As long as we’re being honest, let me add that waking up rigid with tension requires sleeping, and sleeping is something I do only every so often these days. </p><p>Meanwhile, I am thankful for the distraction of GRADUATE SCHOOL. Readers, graduate school is a lot of work. For this I am (mostly) grateful. The workload does add to m'tension, though. </p><p style="text-align: center;">*<span> *<span> *<span> *<span> *</span></span></span></span></p><p>I have tears drying on my cheeks. Why? Gloria Steinem. There she was, via video, on Live with Kelly and Ryan. It wasn’t just her presence. It was what she said. She said in her lifetime, she has seen that the issues that concerned her and a few social justice activists when she began are now supported by the majority of the country. <b>One third of the country wants to hold on to the old order, she said, but two thirds are with her.</b> With us. Tears just seeped out. Tears of sorrow, but also of gratitude and of relief. I think it’s also because I have felt so split off from everyone, and have seen so much awfulness out of the current administration, and so much isolation from the pandemic, that I have lost track of the unifying ideas so many of us share. It's a relief to remember that most people and I think along the same lines. </p><p>The last Parkland, Florida, student survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School will graduate this year. Only staff who were present will be there to remember. Think about it. Those kids who have become activists because of that disaster are now in college, or are about to be, and they are going to make things happen in our political system. </p><p>To all the progressives and the young, cynical, disaffected voting-age people out there, I want to say something. Change will happen, because change is always happening. <b>Unless you participate in the political process, it may not be the change you want</b>. That’s the lesson I learned the hard way. So it’s okay to want AOC and the Green New Deal and to be annoyed with Old Man Biden. It is not okay to give up because change isn’t happening on your timetable or in your preferred way. Keep at it. Keep at it. </p><p>Some dude took the time to criticize me for criticizing our current administration on a blog post I wrote three years ago. He said he really loved what I was writing and was finding it helpful, until, until, until I “dumped on” my president. Then he didn't want to read any further. This dude said he was Australian, and therefore not even a voter in the USA, by the way. He told me he thought, essentially, that I would catch more flies with honey if I had steered away from politics. I gave the matter a few seconds' consideration. </p><p>Well, hell with that. I’m not trying to catch flies. I’m trying to stay sane and maybe help m’readers with that mission. </p><p>Speaking of flies, I did not watch the Vice Presidential debate, but I certainly heard about the fly. What a perfect living metaphor for the putrid, rotting body of this administration. The husband commented that the fly is a symbol of Beelzebub, and everyone knows from the movie "Beetlejuice" who Beelzebub is, and so we have a double metaphor. Surely VP Pence and Mother had a hard time shaking that off when they settled in to pray. One hopes. </p><p><a href="https://tenor.com/bqJyL.gif">https://tenor.com/bqJyL.gif</a><br /></p><p>That’s the stuff that gets me out of bed in the morning. </p><p style="text-align: center;">*<span> *<span> *<span> *</span></span></span></p><p>By the way, I recently read that shopping and materialism are manifestations of aggression. (This is the sort of stuff I get to read sometimes for school.) At first I was like, Whut? Whut are you talking about, PhD author of peer-reviewed journal article? I've been letting that idea settle. I ordered a couple of items online and monitored myself. Was I feeling aggressive? Combative? Was I slamming and jamming those keyboard keys as I typed my credit card information into the virtual checkout cart? Perhaps. I considered the multitude of items I have considered or have actually purchased over the last six months. I'm not saying I totally agree with this PhD author of peer-reviewed journal; I'm not disagreeing either. Am I containing a lot of aggression and hostility in my body? </p><p>You betcha. I'm gonna proudly wear it on my feet when my new shoes arrive. Unless they don't fit, because, you know, I bought 'em online without trying them on. In which case, I may just hurl them through someone's window. Possibly my own, but I hope not. </p><p>So, hey, this is the lightheartedest I can be at the moment. I imagine many of you can relate. It is what it is, to quote a (in)famous politician. I would dearly like him out of my psyche. Let's work on that, shall we?</p><p>Be well, Readers. I promise to be a much more measured, perspicacious therapist when I get my degree and my license than I am a blogger. </p><p>Don't forget to VOTE!</p>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-14996992505831111592020-08-29T15:18:00.000-04:002020-08-29T15:18:19.758-04:00Recollecting Impermanence<p>Hello, Readers. Since last I wrote, the beloved pooch has died. This is terribly sad, and I notice his absence everywhere, for example when I wake up and no longer have to step over a large, sleeping dog. Or when I peel a carrot, and I realize he is not waiting patiently on the doormat for me to toss him the ends. It’s sad and we are all grieving, and yet it was inevitable that we would outlive him, barring unforseen circumstances.To avoid this situation, I would have had to adopt a tortoise, I suppose, but they’re not much good for midday walks. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wIz5TGYMD3c/X0qnBSKFbwI/AAAAAAAACmE/7WN0XOn1OjkApZ9F4zRYLRsdycUxVX9rQCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_6512.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wIz5TGYMD3c/X0qnBSKFbwI/AAAAAAAACmE/7WN0XOn1OjkApZ9F4zRYLRsdycUxVX9rQCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_6512.JPG" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BqR1HQWYcdM/X0qm4rrn3wI/AAAAAAAACmA/onOuxm-Zh5keOdmfROXFBsuSpavhukxJgCNcBGAsYHQ/s1843/fullsizeoutput_f6.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1382" data-original-width="1843" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BqR1HQWYcdM/X0qm4rrn3wI/AAAAAAAACmA/onOuxm-Zh5keOdmfROXFBsuSpavhukxJgCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/fullsizeoutput_f6.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Impermanence has, therefore, been on my mind. The truth of impermanence is one of those truths to which we pay lip service. We know life is short, and that change is the only certainty in life, but we usually only know it theoretically, or intellectually, not in a bone-deep way. Yet knowing the deep truth of impermanence is key to appreciating what’s happening right now. Understanding impermanence is the doorway to wisdom, so they say. They, in this case, being Buddhist teachers. </p><p>Buddhist philosophy feels impermanence is so important that everyone, layperson or monk, should contemplate it daily in the form of the <b>five daily remembrances.</b> They are as follows:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Just like everybody, I am of the nature to experience illness. I cannot avoid sickness</li><li>Just like everybody, I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot avoid aging. </li><li>Just like everybody, I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape death. </li><li>I am the owner of and heir to all my actions. </li><li>I must be separated and parted from all that is dear and beloved to me.</li></ol>Those last two are listed in different order, depending on the translation.<p></p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>—Upajjhatthana Sutta </p><p><br /></p><p>I’m not going to lie, these seem like a bummer. Number five is really hard to take, these days. I lost an earring down the bathroom sink the other day. I swear that thing committed harakiri, because otherwise there is no explanation. Unless it is that my ear holes have stretched and sagged along with everything else on my person? But I mean maybe the earring disappeared to get me to pay attention to the blog post I’ve delayed writing for days. Was this not karma showing me the truth of this contemplation? Really, it’s very sad, this truth. In the way I understand the practice, by facing this idea daily, I am to become less grasping after stasis and more accepting of the true nature of life, that it is transitory, from the briefest mental image or thought, from the strongest emotion to the longest life. Once I accept this, I suppose, I am free from a layer of sadness and anxiety about the inevitable changes, and this extra space allows me to appreciate what is before me more fully than I do when I am worried about something or someone slipping away. Earring. Dog. Daughters. Life. </p><p>I may be a little tender on this reflection, considering the dog, considering that we’ve just dropped the younger daughter at college for the first time. The elder daughter will soon decamp from our comfortable pandemic bubble for a job in Boston. My sister the psychoanalyst is one year older today, which means I am, too. And none of your “she’s only one day older than she was yesterday” folderol. Sometimes the milestones hit you. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-avQjf8zePio/X0qnnkFz0-I/AAAAAAAACmQ/q5Vcf9_zAlYX9WGFwBGdQ4gx8zSAUNXcACNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_7548.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-avQjf8zePio/X0qnnkFz0-I/AAAAAAAACmQ/q5Vcf9_zAlYX9WGFwBGdQ4gx8zSAUNXcACNcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_7548.JPG" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Here’s a secret. I’ve found that when I contemplate these five remembrances, I feel a bit of relief. It’s just the teensiest bit of relief, more of a minute relaxation deep in my gut. I think it has to do with letting go of some of the struggle to collect and keep everyone and everything dear near. I think it has to do with releasing some shame around aging, illness, death, responsibility, and loss. I think there is shame around these things sometimes. We feel that if we experience them, it is our fault for not managing well enough in the world. We didn’t exercise enough, or eat the right food in the right amounts. We didn’t appreciate the gravity of our choices at the time and could have chosen better. Maybe you don’t feel that way, Readers. If so, I am glad for you. For me, I have found it so. Which means, that counterintuitive as it seems for me, these recollections do help me be more comfortable. </p><p>I was informed that my earring, a thing I hold dear, was most likely retrievable from the trap under the bathroom sink. I marshaled my resources to figure that out—by which I mean I texted the husband, who said he would do it when he got home from work.</p><p>The husband did indeed find my earring. So what does that mean? It means that sometimes things from which we are separated come back to us. As Sting told us, back in the early 1980s, “If you love something, set it free, free, free.” Sting’s lyric doesn’t exactly apply to losing an earring. It might apply, however, to letting your child leave for college, and your other no-longer-a-child child leave for a new phase of life as a college graduate working for peanuts and trying to make the world a bit better. By "letting your child" I don't suggest I have any choice in these things. The letting is internal.</p><p>However, because of the covid, the new college student will indeed be coming back to us. Her college is only allowing the first years one semester on campus. The rest of the academic year will be remote learning, so that the older students can have a semester there. Oy. Such is the ever-changing nature of things. </p><p>Meanwhile, Readers, I started full time graduate school for social work this week. At the ripe old age of one thousand and ten, I am returning to school for a master’s degree, with a plan to become a therapist. I don’t know if this is wisdom or foolishness, embracing of life, or denial of time passing. Nevertheless, I go forward. I cannot escape illness, death, or aging. I cannot avoid responsibility for my choices or letting go of all I love. Okay. So be it. </p>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-58673334712148906482020-07-22T12:29:00.001-04:002020-07-22T12:29:36.429-04:00Success in Stasis: Dealing with the Doldrums<div>I was working my way towards something inspirational and success-related for you, Readers, but then the doggo was sick all night, and I got no sleep. So it seems like a time to remind myself and you that sometimes success is simply hanging on. Progress is not always an option. Sometimes there’s stasis. Sometimes there’s downward plunging. Sometimes there’s circling the drain. What’s that word for when you’re sailing and the wind dies? I would probably remember it if I weren’t so tired. Oh yeah, the doldrums. Sometimes it’s the doldrums. Don’t have a lot of control over that. Sometimes the wind just dies. Meaning you’re sailing along and heading somewhere, the wind ruffling your hair, and you’re feeling all windblown and healthy and looking towards the horizon. Sometimes, though, there’s no breeze, just nothing and humidity and your hair is frizzy and stuck to your cheeks and you’re suddenly hyper aware of your damp bathing suit and how unpleasant it feels. Of course, you are also gripped by the anxiety that this state will never change, that you’ll be bobbing along in the current with no control over the sails ever again. This anxiety that the doldrums will last forever is called catastrophizing, and it comes with the territory. It is, by the way, never helpful. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Sunfish_rigged_for_sailing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="800" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Sunfish_rigged_for_sailing.jpg" title="Oliver McCloud from New York City, USA / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)" width="600" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>Why the sailing metaphor, you may well ask. Well, before the doldrums hit, aka, the dog having a terrible night, I was enjoying my weekend thoroughly, sitting on a warm rock and dangling my feet into a lake, watching a sailboat race of little sunfish sailboats. It was a truly lovely time, involving lovely sailboats moving in the breeze, despite many sad things going on in the world and within my circle of influence. Today, though, I am just trying to get through the day. It helps to remember that just a day ago, the mood was much better, because the next step is a plunge into catastrophizing, which I just told you is never helpful, despite being a regular occurrence. </div><div><br /></div><div>Eventually, the wind will shift because you’ve drifted along in the current just enough to get to a slightly different place. Then you’ll be able to fill your sails and start moving again. Until then, well, you are stuck with where and who you are, so you might as well accept that. Self-acceptance. Acknowledging what is right now, and acknowledging that what is right now is not what will be forever. Radical self-acceptance. That might just be the very thing that gets the wind moving again. </div>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-44443867111404036212020-06-16T14:53:00.003-04:002020-06-16T17:28:25.263-04:00Annals of Pandemic Life: What is Success When the World is Full of Suffering?Readers, my eye has been twitching for days. Lower lid twitch. It’s a minor annoyance. I think my eyes are tired of everything they’re seeing. Plague, protests. Racism, authoritarianism, cynicism, pessimism. Climate change. The paterfamilias is suffering from frailty and isolation. The doggo needs surgery for a fast spreading cancer and yes, he is going to get it, but will it be in time? It was damn hard to get an appointment for him, because the surgeon veterinarians are all booked up, now that they’ve reopened. My circle of concern is on fire, and my circle of influence seems about the size of a pinprick.<br />
<br />
What does success mean when the world is full of suffering? What does it mean to be successful in a world like ours? Can there be any success when so many people have no chance for it? There are moments when continuing to address the single-focused need to self-actualize seems too small.<br />
<br />
“How do you want to be changed?” Gil Fronsdal asks in his dharma talk about the protests in response to the murder by police of George Floyd.<br />
<br />
How do I want to be changed? Essentially. That’s how. I want to operate from that place, and I want to make things better for Black people. That will make things better for all people. So helping to eliminate racism is key.<br />
<br />
How does that relate to success? Well, the scrabble after accumulating material goods and money that so often defines success seems to be accentuated by the recognition that the world is so much about about haves and have nots. In other words, the drive for material success is powered by fear of becoming a have-not. So helping eliminate the have-nots is one key. By “eliminate”, I do not mean genocide. People, do not quote me out of context! I mean eliminate the have-nots by eliminating their state of want. If the worst-off in society had basic needs met, had health care, had housing, had education, had food and clothing and community, then the fear would abate, and the scramble for accumulating maximum resources would abate, too. And the racism would abate, too. Or so it seems to me.<br />
<br />
<br />
So what do I do when my circle of concern is ever-expanding and my circle of influence seems like a pinhead? Well, a pinhead can be just enough space. This reminds me of the cute townie boy I used to chat with in the second hand store in Oxford, my junior year abroad. I could tell he was half-annoyed by me, because I was a privileged gownie, but also half interested in me because I was, well, cute and American. Anyway, I digress. The point is that one time he told me that Oxford had many elements. “It’s the whole world on the head of a pin,” he said. He was really cute. Did I mention that? I don’t know how broadly he had traveled, but nevermind. He meant I should look beyond the spires of the university. There were layers and problems right there. So it may be small, a circle of influence the size of a pinhead, but it’s still a circle of influence.<br />
<br />
So, what can I do? Well, turn to the teachers, of course, because teachers are focused on creating the next generation. And before we say what my graduates have been hearing, over and over, that they are the future and our hope, that they have to fix the mess they’re inheriting, let’s realize what the husband said the other night: We don’t have to hand it all over to them and wait for them to fix things. We can fix things right now.<br />
<br />
Some of the teachers at the high school posted videos for the seniors with their two cents. Since I don’t have any cents to pass on these days, I am once again and always beholden to the amazing, dedicated educators who have taught my children. Teaching is a truly noble profession, and teachers have really stepped up during the pandemic.<br />
<br />
From beloved math teacher, Mrs. Mahmood., came her famous, or infamous, acronym “RODH to success”. To succeed, she said, you need to focus on the following four values: Responsibility; Organization; Discipline; and Honesty. These are solid traits to develop, for sure. I think what she said by way of greeting, however, is equally important, and chosen with intent. “To the loving, caring, cute class of 2020” she began, and I couldn’t help notice those values either. She teaches Calculus and Math 3/Linear Algebra, so focusing on achievement might be what you would assume is most important to her. However, she focuses on character, and on love and caring. I think that’s telling.<br />
<br />
R Responsibility<br />
O Organization<br />
D Discipline<br />
H Honesty<br />
<br />
Bear witness.<br />
Protest racism.<br />
Make phone calls to the veterinarian.<br />
Make phone calls to the paterfamilias and to my sister the psychoanalyst.<br />
Bear witness. It’s a choice, bearing witness. The other option is to distract myself or turn away. So, yeah. Bear witness.<br />
Argue for fairer policy and law. Educate myself (more bearing witness).<br />
And of course, vote.<br />
Thank you, Mrs. Mahmood.Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-50866669271545251392020-05-19T14:27:00.000-04:002020-05-20T14:39:40.619-04:00Annals of Pandemic Life: Journaling ThroughDear Readers,<br />
<br />
Lacking a coherent idea, I am sharing some thoughts from the last few days. Sure, I could wait and try to distill this into something more polished, but I think that might take too long. Perhaps the theme is see-saw: up and down, good and bad, plus and minus, happy and sad.<br />
<br />
<b>Thursday, May 14, 2020</b><br />
<br />
Time for a blog post.<br />
What I am thinking about.<br />
<br />
Okay, so we all know by now that unless we are essential workers, who have to show up at their workplaces as usual, or teachers, who are expected to teach all day via the interwebs, we have time now to think about Things. We have time to spend with our families, or perhaps with ourselves, with only our image in the mirror for company. I have been taking advantage of this opportunity, Readers, to really notice things.<br />
<br />
For example, one of the things I have noticed is that one of my ears is lower than the other one.<br />
<br />
Is this deep and important? Well, it is to me. I mean, what the heck? You know how they say if you have a very asymmetrical face, the asymmetry is indicative of some kind of twisted evil inside you? Well, does that apply to ear level?<br />
<br />
I’m serious. After five-plus decades of life, is my inner evil, twisted landscape finally manifesting in some asymmetry that’s going to become more and more obvious as the next decades (God willing) go by?<br />
<br />
Such are the thoughts of which isolation is made.<br />
<br />
<b>Friday, May 15, 2020</b><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. </i>Toni Morrison.</blockquote>
<br />
My friend, writer Catherine Goldhammer, posted that quotation on her Facebook page and it was the perfect thing to read. The words pierced through the haze, the scrim, the plaque on the teeth of daily life that I seem to be encountering. Of course, the next thought I had was a little slonk on my virtual kneecaps*: What you write, a blog? That ain’t art. That ain’t books. Not literature. That’s nothing. You’re not an artist. Not an artist-artist.<br />
<br />
Setting aside the question of what makes an artist, I responded to that quotation because I did recognize myself in it. Artists examining the world and trying to make sense of it is an aspect of what I do, even in my lowly blog. One may recognize that one is engaged in Important Work, even if one is not engaged in the Most Important Work.<br />
<br />
There is art to that, Readers.<br />
<br />
That said, what can I tell you? It’s Friday, and every time Friday whips around, I can’t believe it means another week has gone by in Coronavirus isolation. It seems so fast, even though during the other seven days, time seems to stretch and stretch, the days jumbled and somewhat indistinguisable. The husband still goes to work at the hospital, so in fact, our schedule still has weekends. I am thankful for that.<br />
<br />
When this shut down began, I was dismayed that my guilty pleasure, the weekday morning talk show “Live With Kelly and Ryan”, was running old episodes. I didn’t want reruns. Reruns seemed so hopelessly outdated when everyone was talking about the new world order. I didn’t want to see the studio audience, when now I knew there was none. So I was relieved when, a few days later, Kelly and Ryan appeared via Skype to do the show live once again. The quality of the broadcast was about as good as it could be via video feed, and that was okay. It was a comfort to see Kelly and Ryan, one holed up in her (probably vast triplex) appartment in New York, the other in his (probably vast) house in Los Angeles. We need to see how others are coping. How others are carrying on right now. We need to remember that the mundane and the frivolous continue, even amid chaos.<br />
<br />
Entertainment is essential work, too. We are all depending on the entertainment industrial complex to divert us from the coronacrisis.<br />
<br />
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I put on a 95th birthday party for the paterfamilias on Zoom this week. Well, when I say “the paterfamilias” I mean the paterfamilias of my family of origin. The husband might take exception to the term if not applied to him in the family we created. Anyway, I was almost as stressed out by this event as if it were an in-person party. Wrangling Zoom boxes full of people who want to talk is a nightmare waiting to happen. Well, it happened. Thanks to the mute button and the stealth and tech savvy of the college senior and the high school senior, the event passed rather well. I had invited everyone to share a memory of the paterfamilias, and to decorate their Zoom rooms if they wished. People had balloons and party hats and banners. We all sang “Happy Birthday” in our little boxes. It was fun. And, not to overdo the silver lining blather, I will say this. If we had met in person, it would have been a bigger party, but some of the people who Zoomed in might not have been able to attend in person. Furthermore, at an in-person party, people would be clustered in their little groups, and it would be very unlikely that everyone there would have the time or ability to listen carefully to what each guest had to say about the guest of honor. So, yes, that was nice.<br />
<br />
<b>Monday, May 18, 2020</b><br />
<br />
<br />
President Obama gave a televised address to high school seniors. Don’t ask me when, because the days are melting together. All I know is that he spoke, and we in this household listened. Some of us needed Kleenex. One of us, to be exact. Obama was brief, coherent, and inspiring.<br />
<br />
Brief, coherent, inspiring. Let that sink in, if you will. National addresses of late have been none of those.<br />
<br />
Anyway, his message was simple: do not be afraid of the future; do what you know is the right thing to do, even if it is not the easy choice; and build community.<br />
<br />
It was a lot to ask, but it came out simple. Do not be afraid of the future. The United States has gone through terrible times before and has come out stronger. Despite all the bad that’s evident in the country right now, there is no doubt we are better off than before. Well, is that true? I think so. It’s better that all that awful stuff is out in the open. It’s disheartening to realize how much hatred and anger is all around, but if we don’t see it, we can’t address it. Even if it's not true that we are better off now than we were before, now is where we are. The future can be better. So, really, what is the point of fearing the future? We have to meet it, afraid or not, so it’s better to accept that and move forward without fear. That way it will be easier to see the next right thing to do.<br />
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*</div>
I am trying to write a blog post and it’s hard. It’s hard to think of something to write when the most exciting thing we did this weekend was go to Target and then to our lawyer’s house to sign wills, powers of attorney, and health care proxies on her back deck.<br />
<br />
It is true. That was the most exciting thing. I put on hard pants** and a belt and a blazer. Yes, I said blazer. It wasn’t a tweed blazer, it was made of denim. I also put on my very cute slides with bows that I got last spring. Very impractical shoes. Perfect for a ride in the car and quick run to Target and to walk around to the back of the lawyer’s house. The eighteen year old and the twenty-one year old had the same impulse to dress for the occasion, I might add. I am adding. Their versions of dressing were different from each other’s and from mine, but the effort was there. This reminds me of a phase through which the twenty-one-year old passed in high school. She and her friends would discuss how many “efforts” they put into their outfits that day. Clothes, hair, makeup, shoes were all part of the count. So for me, I would say, for this excursion I put in about five efforts. Out of ten, shall we say? The eighteen-year-old put on a skirt and some platform jelly shoes, and mascara. She did her hair. Eight efforts?<br />
<span id="goog_610889753"></span><span id="goog_610889754"></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1Zh-Q3P7hFo/XsQiN7IObgI/AAAAAAAACiU/qj-MHBJmavEVhfcPGwtFE3YKsOjZsRCdQCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_3179.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1Zh-Q3P7hFo/XsQiN7IObgI/AAAAAAAACiU/qj-MHBJmavEVhfcPGwtFE3YKsOjZsRCdQCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_3179.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My shoes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The high school senior's shoes</td></tr>
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<br />
We went to Target first. The husband and I went in. The other two, despite their efforts, “efforts”, stayed in the car, listening to music. I am not lying. They were being respectful of the Coronavirus guidelines. After that, we drove to the lawyer’s house, conducted our signing business on her back deck, wearing masks while she spoke to us through her screen door. Then we went home. The masks went in the laundry and the cute shoes scattered across the mudroom floor. Cooking dinner seemed exhausting, so we ordered pizza.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Tuesday, May 19, 2020</b><br />
<br />
The eighteen-year-old has baked the most delicious chocolate chip muffins. I think my muffin top would agree I don’t need to eat any of them. I should probably opt for enjoying their aroma, which is so wondrous it might just spirit the twenty-one-year-old out of her room. However, I have opted to also eat. Screw vicarious pleasure! So, here’s to muffins and to muffin-tops.<br />
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The part of me that meditates, the part that is propelling me towards becoming a therapist, is somewhat stymied by the part of me that is guarded, barbed, sarcastic, and self-conscious. There is a part of me that wants to get down to the truth in a mushy, serious, loving, helpful way, to be Glennon Doyle Meltonish in my sharing and encouraging of others. Or Brene Brownish. But there is this other part of me that just can’t let go. It’s because I feel embarrassed. Or maybe ashamed. Or unworthy. What would I say if I weren’t afraid or inhibited? I would say that this pandemic isolation period is a time to really connect and knit together down low, completely. Some of us are knitting together, stitching together over the top of a split. Knitting together is good, but knitting together from down low, where a split happened is much deeper and more thorough. This opportunity comes from a place of privilege, it’s a positive, it’s a golden opportunity, and it’s available to me and to mine because we are lucky not to have to risk our lives to earn a living. We are not, like one of my students, working full time at Trader Joe’s while trying to finish a full time semester of college because we’re the only person in our immediate family with a job. We are not like another of my students whose family situation has made attending virtual classes so challenging that now her grades are too low for her to receive her financial aid money for next semester. We are home, worrying about our muffin tops and our misaligned ears and enjoying, despite the anxiety and ennui and depression we sometimes feel, bonus time with our spouses and children.<br />
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Not gonna lie. There’s some bathos and some pathos to the situation. I felt it when I shut the door in the Target parking lot and left the kids in the car. All dressed up and nowhere to go. Zooming for a milestone like a 95th birthday instead of being there to share the same cake. However, there is some grace, too. It was wonderful to see my far-flung cousins and their partners on Zoom. It was heartening to remember that Barack Obama is out there in the world. It is heartening to remember the future will come, whether we fear it or no. It is heartening to know that my children and my friends’ children are graduating into that future, and they will remember how this time affected them, and they will shape things to make them better. It’s a lot to ask of them, but in my experience, it’s good to have things asked of you. We rise to expectations. All rise!<br />
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* * * *</div>
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*”Slonk on the kneecaps” is a literary reference. That’s a lie. It’s a children’s literature reference. Twenty points to the person who knows what book I’m referencing.<br />
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** “Hard pants” are pants with a non-elastic waist. I just heard that term for the first time last week, but the college student already knew it.Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-42964354267813268122020-04-20T11:00:00.001-04:002020-04-20T11:08:27.319-04:00Flattening the Pollyanna Curve--It's OKAYHello, Readers. What’s new? I know, nothing much. Truly. Come to think of it, that’s a wonderful thing to be able to say. Nothing is new. We are still here. Still safe. Still healthy. Yes, it’s tedious, but also, isn’t it just a joy? Isn't it just wonderful? Isn't it just the silverest of silver lingings?<br />
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Too much? Too zesty? Too Pollyanna? Have you ever seen the movie about Pollyanna? I believe it is called “Pollyanna”and stars Hayley Mills. Boy, is she annoying in the film. I don’t recall all the details, but by golly if she doesn’t make the best of just about everything. Every shitty thing that happens to her. Her leg breaks? Bummer, but she’s got lots of time to read, now! And so on.<br />
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You know the type.<br />
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The other day, I was Zooming with some friends and we all agreed that whatever initiative and enthusiasm with which we had initially approached this stay home business had dissipated.<br />
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Dare I say has flattened? The curve of initiative?<br />
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You know, after the initial disbelief that this was really happening, then being floored, we all decided we were going to learn Spanish or clean out our closets or finish up our projects in a frenzy. We were going to empty those junk drawers and learn to subsist entirely on almost-expired foods in our pantries and be better for it. We were going to darn those socks and hem those pants and write those novels. We were going to work out like demons and emerge from quarantine as sleek as dolphins.<br />
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Well, it turns it, many of us are not. We are just existing. Sure, my friend A is working her way through her unfinished projects, but honestly, she was project-based all along. Another acquaintance is planning to finish all her unfinished quilts and is posting photos of them on Instagram. So we shall see. I believe they are the exceptions. A few days of over-filled trash and recycling bins followed by several exhortations from sanitation workers not to overwhelm the trash collectors, because they were just trying to stay safe themselves, were enough to convince me. I heeded such pleas. I put aside the idea of going through the closet with all the old pool noodles—no, I do not have a pool—and Ogosports sans balls and ten year old sidewalk chalk nubbins. It was only my civic duty to leave the mess where it is for now.<br />
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Stay inefficient. Flatten the curve. The Pollyanna curve.<br />
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What I have done instead is I’ve been downloading TV apps with their free trials, knowing full well I’m never going to remember to cancel them when the free part ends. Since then, I have churned through season one of “Agatha Raisin” on Acorn TV. Life in a beautiful town in the Cotswolds with an amateur detective woman of a certain age with humorous sidekicks is just the thing, it turns out, to defray an anxiety attack.<br />
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Actually, what with all the fabulous free meditations and dharma talks the senior Buddhist teachers are giving every day, I am feeling pretty good, anxiety-wise.<br />
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In other news, I have responded to all of my students’ emails, but have not graded a single essay. I’m thinking of just giving everyone an A and flattening another curve. Partly, because I think they’re all shell-shocked and should be put on a pass/fail basis this semester, but their college disagrees, and partly because, as someone rough from the Cotswolds might say, I can’t be arsed.<br />
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Truly, I cannot be arsed.<br />
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Oh, and in other news, I scraped my thumb. (It happened two days after I cut the tip of my index finger with the chef’s knife. That was just a teensy cut, and we were having a tomato sauce that night anyway.) But then I scraped my thumb and it was just in the <b><i>exact place</i></b> to keep opening up and bleeding for the next thirty hours or so (But who’s counting?) and I have to say, this little injury, which was really minor, pretty much brought me to tears constantly. Tears of rage. Tears of self-pity. My water table is just that high. I mean, sure, those niggling minor injuries always cause a burst of fury, and they often prove so much more painful than they should be. However, this one caused such an extra response from me. I chalk it up to having a very low threshold for upset these days.Or an over-active trigger point. These things take energy, too, you know. Flatten the curve of upset.<br />
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Speaking of chalk, chalk was one of the the things in that spare closet that I was going to chuck. Decade-old sidewalk chalk stubs. Who needs ‘em? However, am I glad I have them still, because I can go out and chalk the driveway with a big ole S. O. S., so maybe a Scandinavian airliner flying overhead can send down a rescue basket and whisk us off to a better-run country than ours.<br />
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Too negative? Sorry, I should have said we can use the chalk to chalk a big ole rainbow on the driveway when the weather warms up. Solidarity and all that.<br />
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I am glad my kids are older now. They can take care of themselves. They can bake, I probably mentioned. And sometimes they can walk the dog or empty the dishwasher. As I told my beloved cousin L, I wish I could be the quirky fun mom and come up with great reasons to hang around me and stick together during this, but what I really want to do is flop on the couch and watch another episode of "Agatha Raisin". Sometimes they sit with me and scroll through their phones at the same time. That counts as togetherness and fun activities, don't you think?<br />
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Which reminds me, here’s another thing I’ve been doing. I have been eating lots of delicious, homemade goodies. So there’s a curve I won’t be flattening, and it’s on me.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sr8jo0YUbUw/Xp24rkVrCcI/AAAAAAAACfk/h4_3DdHfSdghs4107mLEPuacn4SHtF4HACEwYBhgLKs0DAL1OcqzbUVmQ6o70mKdw7FJTdoQ2jeMh4QCwlW1G_e9tWKehM9mhqFamde711G231hywSJIYYDsH9-Odd8Z5HZAecJzcbNUxo3PfIxAVhwtWqpkkDWW1tfrkRh4rcHzfq4w6QRL8G3KQVd5IkcPcQMsZZGK10GYNRZfsVqG1c93kllZBN9frvzvHGu91DxUk3y8AoshE9yuuaL80o5Uny4lFk5iryWRWj4ZKChzf3YbDYCUhnLyjO5ZnNNgSZY73_eAh4RA87f2Gy-qp3KIho_X8XSH91LOiqEkHwXvj9g-7s_jozVzM9lEKd7ykWE-z-jCR7b-vs0wB4qI_fqtpPzOuTuJJfWXOJ3k8wJtuln5vqg41QgaujEFamuC5VbiNSYfvfKdrKR6q1nPmFBQR023c_ljt3l39mIuD45pFOzParJsv9S3I-mA2N2QLYy-G4Q_1hLfSGVy81UzFzdAbfzWv_LJSCR6T-gyzKRzX7-mA4iLt5DO1FmpIc04DvJyFlNrPl8wB_kbFsKOE0b3HGL2m1KmcrgwL0wQwCtwMIVvn9bctpGOJ3H1cAc5FwHFk3RgqYSH9aGx2cIcgmuYfVoPuj6hQJflL40L7loYwvPb29AU/s1600/IMG_3121.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sr8jo0YUbUw/Xp24rkVrCcI/AAAAAAAACfk/h4_3DdHfSdghs4107mLEPuacn4SHtF4HACEwYBhgLKs0DAL1OcqzbUVmQ6o70mKdw7FJTdoQ2jeMh4QCwlW1G_e9tWKehM9mhqFamde711G231hywSJIYYDsH9-Odd8Z5HZAecJzcbNUxo3PfIxAVhwtWqpkkDWW1tfrkRh4rcHzfq4w6QRL8G3KQVd5IkcPcQMsZZGK10GYNRZfsVqG1c93kllZBN9frvzvHGu91DxUk3y8AoshE9yuuaL80o5Uny4lFk5iryWRWj4ZKChzf3YbDYCUhnLyjO5ZnNNgSZY73_eAh4RA87f2Gy-qp3KIho_X8XSH91LOiqEkHwXvj9g-7s_jozVzM9lEKd7ykWE-z-jCR7b-vs0wB4qI_fqtpPzOuTuJJfWXOJ3k8wJtuln5vqg41QgaujEFamuC5VbiNSYfvfKdrKR6q1nPmFBQR023c_ljt3l39mIuD45pFOzParJsv9S3I-mA2N2QLYy-G4Q_1hLfSGVy81UzFzdAbfzWv_LJSCR6T-gyzKRzX7-mA4iLt5DO1FmpIc04DvJyFlNrPl8wB_kbFsKOE0b3HGL2m1KmcrgwL0wQwCtwMIVvn9bctpGOJ3H1cAc5FwHFk3RgqYSH9aGx2cIcgmuYfVoPuj6hQJflL40L7loYwvPb29AU/s1600/IMG_3121.jpg" /></a></div>
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Sometimes success is about knowing how to let go.<br />
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Yup, that’s about it for me, Readers. How’s things with you?Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-20788954939301793922020-03-31T15:59:00.000-04:002020-04-01T10:34:53.178-04:00Annal of a Pandemic: Success is about What We Can ControlThe other day, I saw an article by memoirist and writing teacher Marion Roach Smith about writing list memoirs, if writing a full one seems overwhelming. And times, they do seem a bit overwhelming, so I am taking MRS’s advice, which is to lower the bar and offer a few snippets of things happening in my life.<br />
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1/ In attempting to teach online, I have learned to lower the bar. Lower the bar, by the way, is a good catchphrase for the era of the virus. Especially if you’re a teacher, as I am, thrust into online teaching, as I have been. There’s much talk of trying to manage to connect with students as best we all can. Scaling back. Simplifying. As my mentor teacher says, take it a week at a time. Also my friend Diane offered that suggestion. And really, readers, I don’t need to be told twice. Lowering the bar is a specialty. So, my goal for my first online class is to take attendance and see if everyone makes it online, if they can hear me and we can hear each other, and ask them how things are going. That’s about it for today.<br />
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2/ I made the decision to skip most of the news and it’s going well. So here’s another tip, Readers: ignore things you don’t want to read. There is a lot out there that’s not strictly necessary, especially on social media, and guess what? I don’t have to read it. Neither do you. What a relief! When I ignore the scary graphs and the misinformation and the contradictory advice about masks, I am left with being at home, with a blank page, with my daughters, with a house full of books and old movies, and the ability to breathe, move my body through space, and eat baked goods. As Jon Kabat-Zinn writes in <i>Full Catastrophe Living</i>, if you're breathing, more is right with you than wrong.<br />
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3/The college senior found an unopened box of matzoh in the cupboard. Just in time for this year’s Passover, she is finishing last Passover’s matzoh by turning it into chocolate caramel matzoh.<br />
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4/The other day, in the spirit of lowering the bar, I skipped my morning workout and spent a lot of time in my bathrobe. Then I decided this won’t do, as I feel that lowering the bar below getting dressed is too low. One must keep up appearances.<br />
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5/Reading a five volume family saga set in Great Britain before, during, and right after World War Two turns out to be just the thing for enduring privation. I mean, they didn’t have things like gourmet cheese, or disinfecting wipes. They had those dreadful rations for years after the war, and everyone went about in old suits and darned socks. They barely had heat, for heaven’s sake. Coal rations. So, they practiced ingenuity in confronting scarcity. Also, just reading about learning to eat tinned beans on toast and saving clothing coupons to be able to buy a new outfit, makes me feel plucky. We’ll get through, as the Brits did. And maybe we’ll end up with a better, more equitable healthcare and social safety net, too. What’s the book? <i>The Cazalet Chronicles</i>, by Elizabeth Jane Howard.<br />
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6/ In re: number 4/ above—I don’t know about your house, but mine is full of bakers. They’re baking desserts at a terrific pace. It’s nice and all, but I have a terrible sweet tooth, so I’m lobbing suggestions for minty desserts, because I don’t like minty desserts. As I write this, I am trying to help bring butter quickly from freezer temperature to room temperature by holding it in my armpits.<br />
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Too much information?<br />
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Desperate times and all that jazz…<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L8v2JJ_r0o8/TsvbFlrObvI/AAAAAAAAAWU/M2F5z9AdY1cDtb7jILAnPBV5CVaJVOZsACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/circle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L8v2JJ_r0o8/TsvbFlrObvI/AAAAAAAAAWU/M2F5z9AdY1cDtb7jILAnPBV5CVaJVOZsACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/circle.jpg" /></a>7/I in no way intend to make light of the current pandemic, by the way. It’s just that it feels important right now to focus on what I can control. This is Stephen Covey’s first habit of highly effective people. Remember that old chestnut? Seems like the perfect time to revisit the concept of the circle of influence versus the circle of concern.<br />
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To refresh your memory, here’s what the diagram represents. The yellow circle is your Circle of Influence. This is the stuff over which you have some control. The blue outer circle is your Circle of Concern. This is the stuff that you’re thinking about, worrying about, fretting over, perseverating about, but really can’t control. So, to bring it down to the current situation, I can control whether I eat one of the Rosie’s Bakery Noah Bedoahs currently getting whipped up in the kitchen, but I cannot control whether they get baked. Apparently. I mean, sure, theoretically, I am the parent, and I could put my foot down. However, both bakers are of age, 18 and 21, and the broader question of how much control I can exert over them comes down on the side of having to hide the flour if I really don’t want them to bake. If you see what I mean. So, what can I do? I can eat or not eat a cookie. I can wash my hands before I do that. I can limit my trips to the grocery store. I can stay home. I can enjoy my children being with me. There is so much out of my control, all I can do is try to accept my limits and work within them.<br />
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The good news, according to Stephen Covey, is that as you focus on your Circle of Influence, it actually begins to expand towards the edges of the Circle of Concern. In short, if you focus on what you can control, the area that you can affect expands.<br />
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<br />Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-62264266874208805232020-03-17T13:06:00.000-04:002020-03-18T08:44:48.540-04:00Not Every Post is Pithy: Part TwoI am taking a break from washing my hands to update you on my life. Isn’t that what you all want to know about? There’s nothing else going on to think about, is there? Did I miss something? Are not we all focused on my big decision: which graduate school should I choose?<br />
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Since you asked, Readers, I chose the more convenient, less expensive, less prestigious, more flexible one. And I feel good about it. Many of you chimed in to offer opinions, as I requested, and the preponderance of opinion was that choice. If I were aiming for an academic post, or if I were twenty years younger, I would choose the more prestigious program. But, as many of you said, people understand that when you’re older, you choose what works best for your whole family.<br />
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I attended a Q & A event for the program last Thursday evening—online, I hasten to add. I didn’t get to meet and greet the entering members of my class, but I saw some of their names on the chat sidebar and I am sure they’re a wonderful cohort.<br />
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I hope I get to meet them eventually.<br />
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As it slowly dawns on all of us that we need to practice social distancing, the memories of chance interactions with strangers become sweet.<br />
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Recently, I had the mixed pleasure of traveling via aeroplane to visit my father. My aged p (pronounce “age-ed pee” please). Flying during a pandemic had a throwback feel. Half empty planes. Two seats to myself. Extra snacks. I used some of my precious hand sanitzer and hunkered by the window.<br />
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While in Washington, I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for my aged p. This was a surreal experience, in the age of pandemic. The place was empty. There was another woman waiting for her medicine and she got to chatting with me. Chatting at me would be a more accurate description, but I responded, as a fellow venturer into the weirdly quiet streets. She told me she had flown over from the UK a couple weeks earlier on a jumbo jet with forty people on it. This reminded me of the olden days when a person might buy a coach ticket and get a center row of four or five seats to herself to stretch out upon.<br />
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When the medicine was ready, the cashier said she needed to update the profile for this prescription. “Date of birth?” She asked. I told her, “May Eleventh, Nineteen Twenty-Five.”<br />
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Readers, the look she gave me, head half-cocked and twisted towards me to take a closer look, crease between her eyebrows making her look quizzical and dubious, was priceless. It took me half a second. Then I said, “I know. It’s amazing. My secret is Botox, Fraxel Laser, and Pilates.”<br />
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We all had a laugh. Tonic for the times, for sure. By the way, of the three things mentioned above, the only one I have used is Pilates.<br />
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Yesterday, en route to pick up the college senior from her shut down college, I stopped at an almost deserted rest area on the Mass Pike. I opened the door with my hand in my coat pocket, using the edge of my coat like a potholder. A man walking at least six feet behind me said, “Yup, that’s how I was going to do it.” I felt compelled to say, and did, that I have been opening doors that way for years. “Me, too,” he said. Solidarity among the germaphobes. It reminded me of a dinner out with friends at an Ethiopian restaurant in Cambridge years ago. Ethiopian food, you may know, is eaten with the hands, off of a communal platter. Before we ate, we each went off to the bathroom to wash hands. The restroom was in a hallway separated from the restaurant by a closed door. This meant there was an extra door to open between the bathroom and the restaurant. This was a door with a regular knob, which meant that on the way back, you had to find a way to twist the knob without getting your clean hands dirty. Knowing my friends as I did—each was decidedly on the “phobe” side of germ—just for fun, I asked the table, “So what did you use to get through the door?” I don’t remember what I used, probably the bottom of my shirt, but I do remember my rock climbing, dear departed friend Steve, said he used his foot. He lifted his leg to demonstrate how he could maneuver a doorknob with a sneaker-clad foot. Impressive.<br />
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Also proves the point that one should always open a door with hand protection. You never know whose dirty foot has been on the knob.<br />
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Now it is time to figure out how to teach online, and to do laundry.<br />
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Before I go, however, here is a picture of a panda:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nx2TuhNG9nI/XnECF-32M2I/AAAAAAAACdc/xrEqZxYze4ANQeQYexjD33eAt469Rn4aACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/%25C2%25A1Panda_en_peligro_de_extincio%25CC%2581n%2521.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="710" height="183" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nx2TuhNG9nI/XnECF-32M2I/AAAAAAAACdc/xrEqZxYze4ANQeQYexjD33eAt469Rn4aACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/%25C2%25A1Panda_en_peligro_de_extincio%25CC%2581n%2521.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By Tamarocochinop* - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49327477</td></tr>
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Because not all words that begin with "PAND" are bad. (Credit to <a href="http://crossword14.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Frances</span></a> for her joke about hating all words that begin with "PAND" these days.)<br />
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<br />Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-57978146305333413092020-03-01T11:27:00.000-05:002020-03-01T11:27:20.539-05:00Not Every Post is Pithy: Professional Success DecisionHello, Readers. I have to make a decision. I dislike decision-making. Deciding means giving up something while embracing something else. Deciding means change. Change means scary.<br />
<br />
Change is also inevitable and good. Repeat twenty times a day until believed.<br />
<br />
I have been accepted to both graduate MSW programs. Now I am deciding between them. What’s an MSW, you may ask. It’s a Masters of Social Work. A do-gooding, pay-nothing professional degree. I want to become a psychotherapist. The goal is to help traumatized children and the worried well. Maybe a sub-speciality of bereaved children. Why? Because I was one. I relate to them. My little neighbors down the street are bereaved twins. Their mother died when they were just two. Now they have a step-mom and they seem to be thriving. I hope they do. It’s a permanent loss, death. Therapy is most likely a must to cope, at least at some point.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the decision to go to graduate school in middle age is not one I take lightly. But my definition of success contains the professional element. As in, I don’t feel successful without having a profession. Writing has not worked out as well as I would have liked. Meaning that I haven’t attained enough professional success with it to be able to call that my profession. To have that be my professional leg of the success chair. Other legs being health, family, friends. And, Readers, something in me is pushing me outward. My children are leaving home. I am confident the high school senior will get in to one of the nine colleges to which she has applied and she will leave, just as the college senior has left. We have entered a new phase, one of continual leaving and visiting and leaving and it’s never living together again.<br />
<br />
This is sad. So very sad. It’s also what parenting success is. The fledglings fledge. They flit, they float, they fleetly, fleetly fly, leaving the momma bird to her middle age spread, hypochondria, and a big choice: how to deal with the next portion of life. The answer for me is to become something else, now that being mom is not a 24/7 physical, mental, and emotional full time job.<br />
<br />
I have a friend around my age who keeps saying she is dying. She's actually very fit and healthy, and when she says it, she's not being a hypochondriac, she's being pragmatic. I think she’s preparing herself for the eventuality. I admire her willingness to stare at that old Death right in the punim and prepare herself by saying, yeah, I’m coming, eventually. But the other day, when she said it, I said, You’re no more dying today than you were ten years ago. After all, we’re always dying, if you want to look at it that way; but if you look at it that way, then just because you’re a particular age, say fifty-five, doesn’t mean you’re dying more than you were.<br />
<br />
Is that crazy of me to say? I know that the longer I’ve lived, the more years I have eluded death, the more inevitable death becomes. But the whole idea of coasting downhill I reject. We are alive until we are not, and that has been true since the moment I was born, yanked out of my mother’s body by forceps, I believe. This is why my head is so misshapen. I hope I never lose my hair.<br />
<br />
The point is, I know myself too well to think I can spend the next quarter of my life at home, being introspective, without developing some serious hypochondria worthy of a Jane Austen character. (The husband and I just reread <i>Persuasion</i> for our book group.) I need to get out in the world, and out of myself. I need to do something that helps others. Something that is definitely a profession, so when people ask me what I do, <i>do</i> being <i>italicized</i>, I can answer with something that makes me proud.<br />
<br />
I guess it came down to how much I want to work on myself. I could continue to try to accept myself just as I am and to work at feeling I have done enough. I could continue to meditate on and rationalize that success does not have to mean success as a professional woman, and that the problem and solution lie within my attitude towards myself. If I can just accept myself as being enough, then all will be well.<br />
<br />
Or I could say, well, a professional identity is important to me. I’m a Gen X woman, bred to be a multi-tasking superwoman, and I don’t have to struggle to let go of that aspect anymore. I can embrace the desire for a professional identity now. I can accept myself AND I can move into something else for this stage of life.<br />
<br />
There's another facet to this gem. The whole hierarchy of needs developed by Maslow*. He theorized that we are all born with a motivation to self-actualization, meaning to develop our full potentials.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for maslow's hierarchy of needs images creative commons" height="238" src="https://s23078.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow-5.jpg</td></tr>
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Later, he updated his theory to say that we're motivated to a step beyond self-actualization, to <b>self-transcendence</b>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for maslow's expanded hierarchy of needs images creative commons" height="264" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcT73r0BDyaV9gaDr4gHn6koIMWAz_uOgBwf_jV6ABMIv3gkJDce" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcT73r0BDyaV9gaDr4gHn6koIMWAz_uOgBwf_jV6ABMIv3gkJDce</td></tr>
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<br />
This stage is characterized by a desire to take one's accumulated knowledge and share it with others for their benefit. Perhaps Maslow had it right. Maybe I am at that stage.<br />
<br />
So now I choose: the more prestigious, more expensive, much more inconvenient program with a more ideal curriculum, or the close to home, less expensive program with the adequate curriculum.<br />
<br />
Thoughts?<br />
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* Here is a good summary, with visual aids, of Maslow's theories: <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html">https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html</a></div>
Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-80297151120830895092020-02-03T20:42:00.001-05:002020-02-03T20:42:04.265-05:00Success in the time of RumpReaders, since everything old is new again, always and forever, perhaps it’s time for a review of one key strategy for success. I am talking about Stephen Covey’s <i>7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopl</i>e. I have my college students read this book. I have them do an exercise from it. The exercise is to visualize your funeral. I know that I immediately think of the made for TV movie, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” whenever the idea of attending my own funeral comes up. How often is that, you might ask? Well, at least once a year, when I tell my students to do Covey’s visualization. It’s in the chapter about Habit 2, “Starting With the End in Mind.” This habit focuses on living according to deep values, rather than shallow ones like power, money, and prestige. This exercise is about getting your priorities straight by imagining how you would want to be remembered. You’re supposed to visualize four speakers’ eulogies, a family member, a friend, a co-worker, and a person who knows you from the service work you do. The idea, obviously, is to look at all realms of your life, not just professional, where we tend to focus our evaluations of whether we are successful. The other idea, obviously, is to get you to distill your life to what’s really important. Ideally, you will discover that what matters is not how much money you made, or what rank you achieved, but how well-rounded you were, that you were of service to others, that you worked hard, and that you had a web of friends and family love supporting you. And that you should incorporate service into your life. Service for others. A worthy ideal.<br />
<br />
Do you think our leaders in the U.S. Senate should do this exercise? I do. I mean, there are several whose funerals I would happily visualize, but my eulogies for them would probably not jibe with what they’d like to be remembered as being. It’s probably too late for course-correction, but perhaps not. Hope springs eternal, as Alexander Pope wrote approximately three hundred years ago. The rest of that couplet is not often quoted, as it’s less optimistic than those words suggest. “Hope springs eternal in the human breast; man never is, but always to be blessed.” I believe Adam Schiff will be happy with his eulogies. Sadly, I imagine Mitch McConnell would also be satisfied with what he would imagine his eulogies to be. Ain’t it just the truth that people don’t think they’re the bad guy, even when everyone else knows they are?<br />
<br />
Moving on. This is not a political blog.<br />
<br />
Now the thing I forgot when I gave this assignment to my students this year, was that Stephen Covey tells readers to visualize their funerals three years from now. Try reading eighteen essays by eighteen-year-olds about their funerals three years from now. It’s jarring. They would be seniors in college. Nobody wants to think about seniors in college dying. It’s bad enough thinking about senior citizens dying. Once you get past that, though, what they write is really touching. They come across as nice people. Like, they want to do good, whether for strangers or by being supportive of friends and family. How can the future be bleak when so many young people want to be good?<br />
<br />
A couple of weeks ago, I read an opinion piece in the New York Times. In case you didn’t know it, this year is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Apparently in schools, Holocaust education has been lumped together with anti-bullying education, and students are told that they should stand up to bullies. “Don’t be a bystander,” they are told. “Be an Upstander.” The high school senior confirmed that she has received this message. So did many of my college students. This article, though, titled, “The Road to Auschwitz Wasn’t Paved With Indifference,”** takes a contrarian stance. The gist: most people are not capable of acting heroically and that’s okay. The Holocaust wouldn’t have happened if more people were simply not doing bad stuff. You don’t have to be an “upstander” to badness to save the badness from taking over. You just have to not engage in the badness. In fact, says this author, promoting the idea that everyone has to be an upstander—standing up to the badness at risk to life and limb or livelihood or mere convenience—is counterproductive. It creates a sense of helplessness, since most of us know we’re not heroic. She writes, “It’s hard to be a hero, to risk your safety and personal commitments in order to help a stranger. That’s a big ask. And by asking people too much, we make being moral too hard — which, paradoxically, can make immorality too easy. “Clearly, being moral is too hard, I’m no hero! Forget it!” we can imagine people thinking.<br />
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The author continues, “The truth about how massive moral crimes occur is both unsettling and comforting. It’s unsettling to accept how many people participated in appalling moral crimes but comforting to realize that we don’t have to be heroes to avoid genocides. We just have to make sure not to help them along.” In other words, don’t join in. If everyone doesn’t join in with the bad seeds, then the bad seeds won’t take over. Now, if only the Senate Republicans were listening to their inner voices clamoring for them to do the long-term right thing, the thing that would make them proud at their funerals.<br />
<br />
Oops, veering into the political again. It is honestly hard to avoid, although avoid politics I do try.<br />
<br />
In my attempt to avoid politics, I came across this font of wisdom, “8 More Habits of People Who Always Have a Clean Home.” I figured—no, more correct to say I hoped— to learn something to help me have a neater home. My home, you see, is rather untidy. I defy you to tell me it’s dirty. But I cop to mess. Particularly to mess created by books and magazines and newspapers. On every single horizontal surface. Dirty, though? Not so much, thanks to the wonderful woman who cleans the house. Still, every so often I hope to become more magazine-spread friendly. Thus, I read the article. But what did I learn? I’ll tell you, to save you the trouble of clicking on this article that got published even though so many of mine have not. Guess what those habits are? Of people who have a clean home? Guess what they do to have a clean home? They put away their dishes. They wipe their counters. They have places to put things. They vacuum. They tidy. Plus three more ways people who have clean homes manage to have clean homes.<br />
<br />
Oh my Gawd. They clean.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-792N2fv1pQw/XjjIxzdts4I/AAAAAAAACbs/PcedhHpk_8c69ub-j-g7kF4VXsRvHvHTACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_2795.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-792N2fv1pQw/XjjIxzdts4I/AAAAAAAACbs/PcedhHpk_8c69ub-j-g7kF4VXsRvHvHTACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_2795.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'd be lying if I said this was atypical. </td></tr>
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Look, if you want real advice, do that funeral visualization. Think of what you want people to say about you at your funeral. Do you want them to say, “She always had clean counters and an amazing centerpiece?” I know I do. So, I shall have to act accordingly. That is my lesson to you. It is clear, I have my priorities in order, just like those Senators. Now all I have to do is clean up my act.<br />
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*<a href="https://www.chasingfoxes.com/8-more-habits-of-people-who-always-have-a-clean-home/">https://www.chasingfoxes.com/8-more-habits-of-people-who-always-have-a-clean-home/</a><br />
** <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/opinion/auschwitz-bystander-theory.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/opinion/auschwitz-bystander-theory.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage</a><br />
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Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-25237463344091860772020-01-08T12:20:00.002-05:002020-01-08T13:57:09.879-05:00Annals of Adulthood: All Things Are Delicately Interconnected<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gBLfNKOBI0w/XhYO0NXnlKI/AAAAAAAACag/e3kiqYtITdYGAI9W0E5IrvDs8KJyvrvGgCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_2754.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gBLfNKOBI0w/XhYO0NXnlKI/AAAAAAAACag/e3kiqYtITdYGAI9W0E5IrvDs8KJyvrvGgCNcBGAsYHQ/s400/IMG_2754.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T-shirt from Mass MoCA. Saying by Jenny Holzer. Message from universal wisdom.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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***</div>
<br />
Perhaps you are wondering why I am writing again so soon. Perhaps you think I have something to suggest about current events. I do not. Perhaps, however, I can offer a diversion from the news, and from videos of burnt koalas and the dauntless people rescuing them.<br />
<br />
Readers, here’s a thing that happened. I went to the gym of a Saturday morning, to participate in a much-ballyhooed cardiokick class. I was a little nervous about taking this class. Rumor reports it is the hardest cardio class at the Y. I had “missed it” by accident multiple times, but that day, I had no reason not to go. The husband was riding his new exercise bike. What was I supposed to do, nothing? Allow him to throw my personal motto—“It’s almost always better to exercise”—back at me? So I decided this was the morning I was going to make it to this class. In other words, it was a relief when I arrived to discover that the class had been cancelled.<br />
<br />
Phew.<br />
<br />
I decided to use the empty studio to do some yoga and stretching. Mid-sun salutation, the door flang open and a woman strode in. She had the purposeful stride of a mom with limited time away from her kids. She was wearing thingys for music in her ears and did not acknowledge me.<br />
<br />
Now, I had set up in a corner of the room. It was a back corner, away from the mirror and from the door. Unobtrusive, and out of sight of people who might press their faces to the door to see what was going on in the studio. It was also near the rack with dumbbells. Please note there are two racks of dumbbells in the studio, the one near where I was developing my positive prana energy, and the other across the vast empty space where no cardiokick was underway.<br />
<br />
You can guess where this is going. After she flang open the door, this woman strode in to the nearest rack for some dumbbells. I would’ve gone there, too, the rack being nearest the door. What I would not have done, however, is proceed through my barbell routine, including lots of squats, right beside the rack. Why not? Because there would have been another person in the giant room who had been there already and who was nearby. So nearby that if I squatted I would have my derriere practically hanging over her mat.<br />
<br />
I kid you not.<br />
<br />
This harshed on my mellow. I tried in best yogic fashion to let it go, but really, when her a** began to cantilever over my head, I felt the ole blood boil.<br />
<br />
What did I do, Readers? Did I give her an old New York talking-to? Of course not. I am now much more enlightened (see<a href="https://www.unmappedcountry.com/2020/01/annals-of-type-b-guru.html" target="_blank"> previous post</a>). I considered how her a** in my face was possibly more my problem then hers. I considered whether I wanted to ruin both our workouts by having a direct conflict. I decided yes to one and no to the other. So I got up and moved my mat about ten feet away. In a pointed manner, I must admit. You know, in a vigorous way. As if to say, You probably should have moved your cantilevered a** about ten feet away from me, Lady. In case you did not notice I was there.<br />
<br />
But I did not say it. And, to be honest, I think she did not notice. She finished her workout and left.<br />
<br />
What can I say about this?<br />
<br />
I took from this interaction an intention to try not to be as oblivious as Cantilevered A** Lady. I realize I may be misinterpreting her actions. It is possible she was not oblivious. She might have been a hundred percent 'blivious, as far as I know. She might have been an intentionally rude person. But I chose then and choose now to believe that she was not intentionally rude. She was distracted. Or concentrated. Or both.<br />
<br />
And I have been that way at times myself. Times when I am upset. Maybe to the outside observer I have seemed normal while inside my thoughts were circling, swooping, screeching and creating an almost unbearable cacophony that kept me from seeing much beyond my immediate space. Maybe I have symbolically cantilevered my a** into someone else’s space and never even known I did it. Maybe because the person I annoyed was kind enough to let it go.<br />
<br />
Am I kind enough to let it go? (See <a href="https://www.unmappedcountry.com/2020/01/annals-of-type-b-guru.html" target="_blank">previous post</a> about enlightenment.)<br />
<br />
Yes. I did. I said nothing to her.<br />
<br />
No. Here I am, days later, telling everyone about it.<br />
<br />
Sigh.<br />
<br />
Sometimes the important thing is what you say or don’t say, or do or don’t do in the moment.<br />
<br />
So maybe this is just an apology, too late, of course, to anyone I’ve cantilevered my a** over without awareness. I am going to try, going forward, to do my literal and figurative exercise out of the way.Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-20764481718743312942020-01-01T18:19:00.000-05:002020-01-01T19:57:31.434-05:00Annals of a Type B GuruJan 1, 2020<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LPx_92AX604/Xg0oQFBCoZI/AAAAAAAACaI/j9Ays6FJRTECEMZWOlz8fc_wCGIWfuU_ACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_2544.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LPx_92AX604/Xg0oQFBCoZI/AAAAAAAACaI/j9Ays6FJRTECEMZWOlz8fc_wCGIWfuU_ACK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_2544.jpeg" width="300" /></a>Happy New Year, Readers! Happy 2020.<br />
<br />
It may not be hard to remember to write 2020. It flies off the fingers easily. Twenty-twenty. <span style="color: cyan;">20-20.</span> Let’s hope the whole year is easy. Let’s hope, as my friend A said, that when it comes time to vote, everyone has 20/20 vision this year. Let’s hope that we can all apply a little clear-eyed hindsight to our future visions.<br />
<br />
This blog post is not going to lay out any resolutions. Nor is it going to contain a recap of the highs and lows of last year. I am annoyed at myself for posting less often than I want to, and there are many reasons for this. Father in hospital being a big one over the last month. The high school student performing in the All-State Symphony and filling out college applications being another. Grading the end of semester papers a third. Those are excuses, however. I realize part of why I haven’t been blogging as often as I used to is that I am suffering from perfectionism. Or at least my Type B personality version of perfection. In short, I want everything I put out there for you, Readers, to be pithy, or at least witty. Maybe I am letting perfect be the enemy of good, as the saying goes.<br />
<br />
Or perhaps perfection is too lofty a term. As I mentioned, I am a Type B personality, and we Type Bs are not known for perfectionism (and certainly not for perfection). That’s the stuff of the Type As. Type Bs are likely to make a quilt, for example, that ends up with one strip that is an inch longer than all the others. This would never happen to a Type A. So then Type B has to rejigger the strip, maybe rip out a quilt block and trim it or turn it or something. You know, adapt it and make it work better. By the way, this quilt is another reason I haven’t been blogging as often as I like. But, still it’s another excuse.<br />
<br />
Even if perfection isn’t my aim, better is the enemy of good, as writer Amy Halloran (<a href="https://amyhalloran.net/)">https://amyhalloran.net/)</a> put it at our holiday gathering of local writers. Better can be the enemy of good, too. Because even if you’re wise enough to know perfection is impossible, better is always possible. I truly believe in better. My life has been all about being better. Sometimes, however, good is best. Sometimes good is better than better. Apportioning effort is also necessary for survival, even for success.<br />
<br />
While walking the dog the other year, I was listening to a Gil Fronsdal podcast called “Caring for Yourself and Caring for Others.” The other year. Yesterday, to be exact. Yesteryear, one might even say. He was discussing a Buddhist sutra that talks about how to be happy. One way to care for yourself is to live ethically—abide by the precepts like Do No Harm, (is that the Buddhist precept, or is that a medical precept? Who knows, I am tired. Last night was New Years Eve and it was a late night.) Another aspect of happiness is that caring for others develops your own happiness. The idea is that by developing kindness towards others, you make yourself happy. This taps the philosophical question whether altruism is really altruistic if it makes the do-gooder feel good. According to Buddhist philosophy, the overlap between altruism and happiness is natural and inevitable. There doesn’t have to be a separation between the two. Just because altruism makes you feel better doesn’t mean it’s not altruism.<br />
<br />
Gil Fronsdal mentioned during this talk that at some point in the Buddha's life, he had about 60 enlightened followers. It struck me that I would never imagine that I could be capital-E Enlightened. Yet the Buddha had 60 guys who were enlightened during his life. Perhaps he was just that good at teaching. But that is not the point. The point is, I had a thought. I thought, what if I am enlightened? I mean, think about it. I’ve been meditating off and on for twenty years. I’ve had lots of therapy. I’m introspective and I’m planning to become a therapist (I.e., to help people deal with their emotions and life challenges). What if I am enlightened? How would that make things different? Consider that enlightenment is often described as coming in a flash, an epiphany. Which means enlightenment might not be a permanent state, existing off on an astral plane, unbothered by anything human, being just a floating protoplasm of wisdom, tantalizing mere mortals who want to to tap that.<br />
<br />
What would it mean if I were enlightened? Maybe enlightenment just means something simpler and more down-to-earth. Maybe this is it, that’s all there is, that’s all she wrote. Maybe enlightenment means that I know I have ups and downs and arounds of emotions, that I don’t like some of those emotions and wished they would go away and that I could be this amazing, placid, font of light and whatnot. Wisdom. Love. Positive energy. Peace. Meanwhile, at the same time that I wish to be that avatar of goodness, I’m embarrassed to say so, and that’s just the way it is to be me. Maybe enlightenment is going about the daily rounds understanding that sometimes you’re up, sometimes down, and that it’s always changing. That love is sometimes encrusted under resentment, or tucked away from harsh feelings, or even hidden from your own view.<br />
<br />
And that it’s exactly the same way for everyone. So, cut them some slack. Or at least have empathy, even if you cannot excuse their behavior (not right action) or their nasty words (not right speech).<br />
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Isn’t all this just a way to say maybe it’s okay to say I’m okay as I am. I don’t have to be other than what I am, my imperfect self, my wabi-sabi self, my kintsugi self. Maybe there is no better than that. Maybe good is better.<br />
<br />
Maybe enlightenment is that moment you understand something important —an epiphany, possibly an ineffable one—and then it slips away. Maybe the slipping away part is part of the enlightenment, too. You know it’s coming at moments, in flashes, or phases. And other times you’re just a bitch driving a car and flipping off an old lady who’s driving too slowly in the left hand lane.<br />
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***<br />
<br />
Here's a final thought for the new year. since I am supposed to dispense advice and tips on how to live successfully. As Jon Kabat Zinn writes in Full Catastrophe Living, “As long as you’re breathing, more is going right for you than wrong.” Or something like that.<br />
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Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-46873191281368069792019-11-05T10:30:00.000-05:002019-11-05T16:03:36.367-05:00Kindness as a Key to SuccessThe other day, I invited a guest speaker into my classroom. I wanted to teach my students about meditation and mindfulness. Now, I have practiced meditation, mindfulness meditation, off and on for nearly twenty years. I have read books, listened to countless talks, and even attended a couple of short, half-day meditation retreats on the topic, yet I wanted someone else to teach my students. So in came our guest, who was great, and she talked about how she came to her practice, and types of practicing, and she led a short meditation. I really enjoyed listening to her, and I really admired how she <b>owned</b> it. That’s why I wanted someone else to teach my students. It’s the owning it thing. I don’t. At least not easily. It's not easy to write about it here, as a matter of fact.<br />
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When I took an online survey that ranked my top twenty character traits that reflect my values, spirituality was number twenty, bottom of the list. I was not surprised, and yet I was. I know the quiz ranked the qualities we most value as well as those we most often lead with and use to interpret the world. I lead with humor, honesty, love of learning, judgment, and kindness, not with spirituality. And yet, I have two decades of practice at something many people connect to spirituality.<br />
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Maybe I am a really bad meditator. Or maybe I am just a closet spiritualist.<br />
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Spiritualist is the wrong word. I am definitely not a spiritualist.<br />
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But I was a little disappointed to find spirituality down at the bottom of that list. Almost as disappointed to find that there as I was surprised to find kindness in the top five. Judgment, sure. I reckon I’m pretty dang judgmental. Humor? Absolutely. As Jane Austen said in P & P, "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?" Honesty. Check. Love of learning--may I present this blog, a record of my foray into positive psychology and lord knows what else? Kind, though? Hmmm.<br />
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And yet. And yet. Perhaps there is a connection to the meditation practice and kindness. They say meditating helps you, but often you don’t know that it’s helping you. You just notice life is a little easier to handle. They also say that if you meditate, you develop compassion, aka kindness. Why is that so? Because once you take time to be mindful of what is going on inside you in the present moment, you realize that others are going through the same set of vicissitudes, also known as emotions, that you are. They’re not going through them at the same time you are, but they are going through the same ones. Thus, as you learn to be a little patient with yourself, you also learn a little patience with others, and a little compassion for everyone’s struggles, including your own. So maybe, just maybe, my stealth spirituality is reflected in my top five after all, via kindness.<br />
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And, if I am going to be kind to others, perhaps I can be kind to myself by reminding myself that judgment is not necessarily a pejorative characteristic. It’s an ability to see sides and facets and form an opinion based on discernment, rather than on pure reactivity.<br />
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I had my students take a quiz called the VIA Character Inventory. You can take it, too, for free.* Quite a few of them had kindness in their top five. I found this surprising. Sure, they’re a nice bunch. Most of them are too quiet. Rendered speechless by the request to offer an opinion to the group, as a matter of fact and of deep annoyance to me. I feel quite judgmental about that reticence, and not in a kind way, if I’m honest, which according to the VIA character survey I usually am.<br />
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The relative preponderance of kindness in my classroom made me think that these kids might be reflecting a need they feel in our culture. Our popular culture, our news, our political leaders of late seem so far from kind that maybe our students, our kids, are presenting a collective need for it. I know that I have developed a real thirst for books about etiquette, and television shows that feature people behaving kindly and politely. The seventeen year old and I have been re-watching “Call the Midwife,” and one thing that show portrays is people in the poorest of circumstances behaving with politeness and dignity, even in the most undignified situations. I may start wearing a girdle soon I am so taken with the whole dignity of self-restraint thing. Give me a young, single gal dressed in a skirt, cardigan, and sensible shoes collapsing at a bus stop from an attempt at self-aborting a fetus over road rage and blatant insults on the nightly news any day.<br />
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Okay, not really. I don’t at all want to turn back the clock to illegal abortion and lack of contraception. I don’t want to turn back the clock at all. I want to move forward and beyond our current situation. But I recognize, and apparently so do many of my students, the need for kindness as we try to get there. I feel kind of hopeful about things, if kindness is a deep value for many of us. Kindness is not the sole property of the religious and spiritual. It’s available to all of us.<br />
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My students, or at least the two or three who do volunteer to speak, brought up the idea that kindness and politeness were two different things. That politeness is fake, or it can be. But I think they are related. Politeness might be fake—it certainly is fake, sometimes—but the adherence to it, particularly when you might not feel it, is truly kind. And when someone truly doesn’t deserve kindness, and no names will be named here, it’s a kindness to yourself to maintain dignity. Politeness, etiquette, allows that.<br />
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My children's elementary school principal taught us all this little self-reflection about kindness. I think it originated in the teachings of Buddha, but I am not sure. It's not a verse, it's more of a rubric for self-reflection, self-restraint, judgment in a positive sense, and kindness:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Before you speak, ask yourself, Is it kind? Is it necessary? Is it helpful? </b></blockquote>
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I know that when I do this, I have to stifle some of my natural urges, which would answer those questions thus: Is it kind? Absolutely not, but it's clever. Is it necessary? Again, it is the opposite of necessary, it is superfluous, but possibly funny, at least to me. Is it helpful? Only if you want to add to the inanity around us all. Sometimes, Readers, that is what I want to do. Sometimes that is actually kind, helpful, and necessary. Sometimes we just need to take off the mental girdle. Sometimes a bit of unnecessary folderol is actually necessary. That's what keeps me going. That and, apparently, kindness.<br />
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Peace.<br />
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*Here’s the link to the quiz. It takes about 15 minutes. You have to give an email address and after you take the quiz, scroll to the bottom of your screen and you’ll see the list of characteristics. <a href="https://www.viacharacter.org/">https://www.viacharacter.org/</a>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-68816213676100357102019-09-20T08:54:00.001-04:002019-09-20T08:59:44.484-04:00Annals of Successful Parenting: News and ConfessionsSummer ended before I was ready. I know, officially it's still summer for a little while. But this summer ended too soon. It was full of fun things. One of the funnest was this, seen as we inched through traffic to the beach in August:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GcKGgHg7twg/XYTJ-9S0YOI/AAAAAAAACWo/FFxfxrxUt4s89kTEFMEv5oYJJvlkK82GACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Dog%2Bon%2Bmotorcycle.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="352" height="329" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GcKGgHg7twg/XYTJ-9S0YOI/AAAAAAAACWo/FFxfxrxUt4s89kTEFMEv5oYJJvlkK82GACNcBGAsYHQ/s400/Dog%2Bon%2Bmotorcycle.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look closely. This Harley-riding dog wears goggles. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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With stuff like that in my life, you can see why I wasn't fully prepared for the start of school. In fact, confession, I wore pajamas to school carpool drop off that day. That means I am fully a suburban mom. Better late than never. Readers, I have arrived.<br />
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🏘<br />
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Is this truly a wonderful thing? I don’t know. It’s not as if I have been up and dressed every morning at seven twenty-three for the mad dash to the high school. In fact, the only reason I haven’t done drop off more often in my pajamas is that the husband is the morning carpool driver. So while I may lord it over y’all that I haven’t dipped and lowered myself to driving to the high school in my pajams, it’s simply because I haven’t had to leave the house most mornings to do that drop off.<br />
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Until last Thursday. And I felt something slide into place. The last piece of the puzzle that is suburban motherhood.<br />
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A pause to contemplate all that means.<br />
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Car culture. Complacency. A measure of comfort. Also, rushed multitasking frenzy and a soupçon of guilt — the environment, consumption. The contradictions of modern life.<br />
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So the high school student is in her last year of high school, and the college student is in her last year of college. I have been a suburban mom for ten years. Mind. Blown. 🤯Before that, I was an urban mom. In many ways, I liked that better. My stroller was my wheels. This had downsides. There was no walking to school drop off in my pajamas. There was no driving to school in snow and rain. And when I needed an X-ray for what turned out to be pneumonia, I had to walk to the hospital.<br />
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Anyway, it took me ten years to do drop off in my pajamas. I take pride in that. And in my defense, drop off was at six forty-five that morning, because the high school senior plays trumpet in the pep band, and the pep band was to welcome the students to the new school year.<br />
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Speaking of new school year and students, I am into my second year of teaching first year students at a small college nearby. I have joined the ranks of adjuncts, which I feel is analogous to being a scab during a strike. I am working for an insultingly small amount of money. And I feel bad that I am called by the honorific, "Professor". What does this do to all those Ph.Ds looking for work in academia? How are they to succeed at their careers? This adjunct thing seems like yet another way our culture has succumbed to an economic, short-term, profit-based mindset, rather than a people-based one. Seems like key to failure as a society.<br />
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What am I teaching my students, you may wonder? I am teaching their required first year seminar on how to write at the college level. Or how to write at all, apparently. There are many sections of first year seminar, since every student is required to take the course. So each section has a theme and mine is Defining Success. It turns out that I have a lot to say on the subject. But of course, as a teacher, I aim not to do all the talking, but to lead my students to their own conclusions.<br />
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<br />
Anyway, in other news, I have been enjoying the sidewalk in our neighborhood. The Australian Labradoodle doesn’t. Well, he does sometimes, and sometimes he doesn’t. The times he doesn’t are those times I attempt to walk him on the sidewalk when he is expecting to walk on the other side of the street as we used to do, when we had to walk facing oncoming traffic. He only wants to walk towards oncoming traffic in other words. He is a rule-abiding dog. Now it's all gone to hell, from his perspective. We might be walking one direction. We might be walking another. Either way, it's the same side of the street. This is not how we do things, in dog brain. So many unsniffed scents and uneaten blobs of grass cuttings on the other side of the street that he can’t process in his own special ways.<br />
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It's tragic.<br />
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Sometimes I cross the street just to let him have his way.<br />
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I have a another confession. I put away my snow shovel yesterday. Are you temporarily dizzied trying to calibrate the season and the shovel? No, you are not crazy. Yes, my shovel has been on my porchlet (or is that porchette? porchini? covered entry?) since last winter. So sue me. My neighbors have had a Halloween skeleton hanging from their front door light for about eight years. At least I got my snow shovel stored before I need it again.<br />
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That’s all the news that’s fit to print right now.<br />
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Is any of this about success? You decide.<br />
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In case you missed my podcast interview, which is indeed all about success, here is the link:<br />
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<span style="color: #0000ee; text-decoration-line: underline;">https://www.buzzsprout.com/319835/1431364-challenging-failure-with-hope-perlman</span><br />
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🥰<br />
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And now, I am off to the Global Climate March, Albany site. 🌎Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-76408935101654241242019-08-15T11:14:00.000-04:002019-08-15T11:14:16.710-04:00A Success About Failure Being Part of SuccessI have written a lot about success and failure over the years, as I have learned and grown in my search to redefine success beyond power, prestige, and money. One of the most important things I've learned is that success is inseparable from failure, because success is about rising to challenges, and challenges require effort and practice to meet successfully. And what is practice, if it is not failing over and over again until you get it?<br />
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Another lesson learned is that success is about living life with meaningful work that is aligned with your deep values. Call them principles if you prefer. They are the deeper things that call to us when we are open to listening for them: the desire to help others, to create something, to grow and develop.<br />
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Underlying everything I have learned is this lesson: The framework from which you view your life is the most essential element of success. Call it frame of reference, or mindset, the message is that feeling successful depends in large part on having the the attitude that you can and will grow better and better with effort. Failing that, you are doomed to feel like a failure even when all external signs indicate otherwise.<br />
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I am proud to present to you a podcast interview featuring me. Me, me, me! Yes, I was contacted by the enterprising Paul Padmore, who read <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unmapped-country/201307/surviving-spectacular-failure" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">this blog post in Psychology Today</span></a> and wanted to talk to me about failure and success. We talk about what I mention above, and more, so please listen. And subscribe to his podcast. Every one of his episodes is about the way people overcome what seems like failure and go on to find success.<br />
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Here's the podcast, when Paul Padmore interviews yours truly about failure and success:<br />
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<a href="https://www.buzzsprout.com/319835/1431364-challenging-failure-with-hope-perlman">https://www.buzzsprout.com/319835/1431364-challenging-failure-with-hope-perlman</a>Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-40432080527800213232019-07-09T11:52:00.000-04:002019-07-09T11:52:14.578-04:00Bag and BaggageI had reason to weigh my handbag the other day. Well, someone else weighed it, after she took it from my arm, gasped at the weight, and strode over to a handy nearby scale. My bag weighed in at six pounds eight ounces, about the size of a small newborn human. This was a bit of a shock, but really more so was the gasp of the person who weighed my handbag, my purse, my satchel. Because I have been lugging this bag around — or a similar one—for quite a long time. My pelvic floor physical therapist (PT), who weighed it, suggested that carrying a heavy bag might contribute to pelvic misalignment, which might contribute to pelvic floor problems.<br />
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This is likely too much information for many of you readers, and not enough for some. Please feel free to contact me if you are among the latter. The rest of you, just compartmentalize or stuff all reactions, please. Thank you very much.<br />
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This isn’t really about handbags, or my pelvic floor. Sure, I could do a comic routine about the contents of the bag. (At weighing, there was an unopened lightening adapter cord for the cell phone to car connection and a book about day hikes around our area—very slim—among the usual four types of lipstick, two lip balms, and a chapstick. Those are still there, a week later, let me assure you. As well as reading glasses, non prescription sunglasses, and clip on sunglasses for my regular glasses in case I am wearing them instead of my contact lenses when a ray of sun hits my iris and I need instant protection.)<br />
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My PT suggested I just stow the bag in the car’s trunk and carry only what I need with me.<br />
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It was as if a vista suddenly appeared before me where there had only been fog. I saw from a distance the me I once was, who tripped about Boston and San Francisco with a bank card, an ID, and a bit of cash in a small zipper pouch. No extra underwear—again, probably too much information for some readers—no spare lightening cords or Caudalie lip balm.<br />
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The me I once was and the me I am—are we the same?<br />
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I took my PT’s suggestion, came home and put only the most essential items in a small(er) bag --credit card holder, a bit of cash, phone, keys, and sunglasses, and left the house. I immediately regretted this decision when I realized there was no hand sanitizer in case I touched something germy, and no lip balm for my now parched lips. And how would I read the menu at dinner? From arm’s length and tilted, it turned out.<br />
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Then I remembered my PT’s suggestion of putting the big bag in the trunk and only carrying what I needed with me from the car. Thus, creating the illusion of Holly Golightly fancy-free-ness whilst still having everything at the ready. And quite a bit more. Old receipts? Library cards from the New York Public Library and the 92nd Street Y? It’s been ten years since I left the city.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3_mg-2o8nyM/XSOs1BcsmBI/AAAAAAAACUg/XcQJDWxcQb0QgX3plt3KD-r4fbwNfF85QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_2183.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3_mg-2o8nyM/XSOs1BcsmBI/AAAAAAAACUg/XcQJDWxcQb0QgX3plt3KD-r4fbwNfF85QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_2183.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Italian leather bag, pleather baggie, and flip flop for scale. Intentionally blurred for artistic purposes. (I lie.) </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I am going to blame the children for my large bag. For decades I have been the repository of all the little objects they left the house carrying, plus extra snacks and books and pens and pads of paper for whiling away various units of time. Extra sweaters and plastic bags in case of who knows what? Purell and hand sanitizing wipes in little packets because why not duplicate and never worry? Latex gloves.<br />
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That’s right. Latex gloves. I would carry Latex-free gloves, too, in case someone has a Latex allergy, but that would be overkill.<br />
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I said I blame the children, but it’s disingenuous of me to do so. The large bag predates them. It predates the husband, too. Come to think of it, I’m not sure how often I tripped around town with only a small zipper pouch. It is possible that was only when I was heading out to a club to go dancing. Otherwise, bag. Schlep. Bag. Come to think of it, Holly Golightly was not exactly fancy-free. As I recall, she had her baggage, too. She was, if memory serves, married off to a much older man when she was about fourteen and trying to escape poverty. But, you know that party scene in the movie is the best.<br />
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I think, having had children, that we humans have a genetic desire to carry things. I say this because my children always left the house carrying something. Once they could grasp an object, they carried one with them. A small plush giraffe, or a board book, a plastic dragon, or a Polly Pocket doll. Something clutched in a little hand as they reclined in the stroller. Something to pitch over the edge, of course. A thing I would then pick up and stuff into my bag.<br />
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So, yes, we like to hold things. We like to be burdened. We like to be prepared. The bag is a hedge against the unexpected. We have a baggie for that, or a snack to stave off hunger. An after dinner mint to freshen the breath. The bag, by the way, allows for hands free movement. We may be laden with luggage, but our hands are still free.<br />
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Are we ever free of our burdens? Are we ever burdened by our freedom?<br />
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The answer to both questions is yes, at moments. At least according to Dr. Edith Egar, who wrote an amazing memoir called <i>The Choice</i>, which I recommend to everyone. I don’t know if I want to write about this book, because reading it was kind of traumatic. It’s a Holocaust survival story, but it’s more than that. It’s about living afterward, having survived, and how the trauma affected Egar’s life—and continues to. She’s in her nineties now, and healing from the trauma has taken all this time. It’s hard to think about the trauma experienced by young immigrant children separated from their parents, and how they may or may not fare as they go forward with living. Without professional help, how will they heal? Even with professional help, trauma is hard to heal. And we don’t have to have experienced a concentration camp to be traumatized. There are less extraordinary traumas of loss and assault on the self. And what does it mean to heal? Is it to be free of suffering? Not at all. It’s to experience moments of insight that bring relief, and to have scars. Scars, no matter how cleverly repaired, are permanent disfigurations you carry with you.<br />
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What am I saying? Who knows. Does it relate to success? Oh, absolutely. Edith Egar’s point is that people can be victimized by other people. However, victimhood is a choice. Meaning, learned helplessness, feeling defeated and overwhelmed are effects of victimization that we have to try to overcome, by choosing over and over, and over and over, to try.<br />
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Is that awfully put? It feels kind of judgy of those who have terrible after effects such as PTSD or depression. I guess the thing is that you can be knocked down, sometimes for quite a while, but you have to remember that in your own head you have the choice to protect yourself from forgetting who you were before the trauma. Sometimes that’s enough to carry you to the next day. Edith Egar lost her mother to Auschwitz’s gas chamber, but she carried her mother’s advice with her: no one can take away what you have in your head, and she used her memories of feeling her most empowered and vibrant to help her get through those moments when she was most debased, trapped, and near death.<br />
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Anyway, someone’s got to carry the purse, bag, tote, messenger bag, Birkin, backpack. Those rare few who manage without lean on the rest of us from time to time. I’m about to take a trip, which gives me a good reason to rummage through my big bag and remove some excess stuff. I’ll keep the undies in there, since I probably put them there the last time I traveled by aeroplane. Always good to have extra, in case of disaster, or really in case of delays. In case of disaster, none of it matters.<br />
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Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6525161379578984040.post-47982185948205829102019-06-06T15:54:00.006-04:002019-06-06T15:57:31.320-04:00Soap and Prevention Goals Follow-UpReaders, who knew that soap could produce so much lather?<br />
<br />
My<span style="color: purple;"> <a href="http://www.unmappedcountry.com/2019/05/quarterly-check-in-part-two-goals-again.html" target="_blank">last post</a></span> generated a few interesting responses that I thought you would enjoy.<br />
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Here’s one:<br />
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I just read your recent blog post. I especially enjoyed the bit about the soap because, as you could probably guess, we also like to use soap down to the last drop around here. But, who doesn't like a new bar? A co-worker told us a while back how to meld a soap end to a new bar of soap and we've been living in the best of worlds ever since. :)<br />
Foam on!</blockquote>
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Best of both worlds, indeed. Prevention and promotion goals. This soap meld solution is actually brilliant, if challenging. I’m not quite sure how to do it. The writer kept that secret. How much soap does it waste to get the one to meld to the other? Perhaps it’s only a matter of a simple wet-and-stick strategy. If I remember, I will try to meld. But the husband may foil me by tossing the soap sliver before getting the new bar.<br />
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And, as previously mentioned, I will be relieved.<br />
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Here’s a second:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I have an add-a-thought . . . those slivers escape fingers easily and create a slip-in the-tub hazard, providing the veteran, soap-saving pessimist good reason to toss the sliver and suds up with the optimist's big bar.</blockquote>
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Safety first! This writer is prevention oriented, at least in this situation. But there is, again, the promotion-mindset: being aware of what you might gain. With safety and optimism as priorities, I guarantee a happier life, and one that is probably more successful than just focusing on risk and prevention will create. This is another best of both worlds way of looking at the situation. Preventing slipping and promoting safety by ditching the soap splinter and opening the big bar.<br />
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Then there was this response, which really takes anxiety and guilt to a new level, and shows the dark side of being prevention-minded:<br />
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I think fear is compounded as you age. My sense of adventure has been stamped out by my sense of responsibility and general fear of every darn thing now…<br />
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Like, if you throw out that sliver of soap, you’ll start living a wasteful life and you’ll end up in old age with no financial security. What about THAT you ‘soap wasting optimists’?</blockquote>
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I would like to tell you that I did not totally relate to this superstitious fear one thousand percent. But I did. And maybe some of you do, too. Waste not want not. Isn’t that one of our biblical proverbs? Of course it is. Disobey and invite the wrath of God. In fact, there are probably other rich veins of guilt running through my life that make me expect a punishment from above for some sort of minor transgression below. Or, as in this case, not a transgression at all, really.<br />
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So let’s not waste time on soap splinters and slivers. Unless, like my soap-melding friends above, you really want to. After all, if financial ruin can follow from throwing out a soap splinter, what disasters might develop from not eating all your dinner?<br />
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Oh. My. God. Is that why we have global warming?<br />
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Have I negated my point? Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. (Thank you, Walt Whitman, for another of my favorite quotations I like to use out of context.)<br />
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I am not here to give answers, Readers, merely to raise questions and suggest multiple ways of looking at things.<br />
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And so, let me continue on with this goals stuff.<br />
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These comments reveal their writers’ goal orientations: prevention primarily, but with some promotion thrown in. They also reveal how clever and amusing my readers are, I must say.<br />
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Another comment from the wrath of God writer was that fear had come to dominate decision making so that going on a vacation abroad, a thing she wanted to do, had become impossible. Too many things could go wrong: have a terrible time, bad travel experience, loss of money, injury, death.<br />
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This is prevention orientation to the extreme. Extreme risk aversion becomes paralysis. And it shows the danger of having too much of one kind of focus. Because after all, life is for living, not for hiding.<br />
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So prevention-focused individuals must learn where that focus is beneficial, and where it is harmful. And remembering that we all need goals. And that not all goals are about risk prevention. Some goals are about gain.<br />
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It means making an effort, sometimes, to think about what you might gain from pursuing a goal. If you know you will unconsciously tend to consider the risks more weighty than the rewards of a decision, then you can counter this consciously. By making an effort to consider the gains. By finding someone who will put a new bar of soap in the soap dish for you.<br />
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*********<br />
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And now it’s June.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wo-rOxZ26to/XPlvQuYgV1I/AAAAAAAACTI/d1I4JKVdj8ANCg7tFPZ67vh1gWnJrnumACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_2108.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wo-rOxZ26to/XPlvQuYgV1I/AAAAAAAACTI/d1I4JKVdj8ANCg7tFPZ67vh1gWnJrnumACLcBGAs/s400/IMG_2108.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Delights of June. And sun. </td></tr>
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<br />
Ouch, my pinkie hurts. I jammed it during YFit class today. On a medicine ball of all things. Throwing it against the wall. I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect it would hurt to type.<br />
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So I am forcing myself to finish the blog post. It may be more disjointed than usual, but that's because my pinky is, too.<br />
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In other news, I find I have enrolled in a class—a graduate class for the MSW degree. I’m not enrolled in the program. Yet. But I am leaning that way. Prototyping my way through life, as recommended in<a href="http://www.unmappedcountry.com/2018/01/the-problem-of-advice.html" target="_blank"> <span style="color: blue;"><i>Designing Your Life</i> by Bill Burnet and Dave Evans</span></a><span style="color: blue;">.</span> They are Stanford professors in the design department. Using principles of design to design a fulfilling life. In this case, trying out a possibility, and seeing how it goes. Developing a first attempt and then tweaking. That is prototyping. Prototyping is key to design, and therefore to life. It makes sense as a strategy. Keeps a person moving, which seems to be a built-in need: to feel like we are progressing. And then correcting as need be. So. I have prototyped my way into a group presentation due Monday on Domestic Violence, also know as Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), and a 2-3 page paper based on an interview with a member of an older generation on a problem in social welfare. Dad, expect my call any moment. Topic: discrimination.<br />
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Now, I don’t like to wax spiritual-mystical woo-woo, but I am going to say this. A few weeks ago, feeling discouraged about writing overall, I wished consciously to myself for an opportunity to write something more for Publisher's Weekly, something beyond my short, unsigned reviews.<br />
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And then, yesterday, came an offer. I’m waiting for confirmation, but I have been asked to interview an author—for a byline!<br />
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So. Just leaving that out there. Is it a tip for success? Is it a plug for the Law of Attraction?<br />
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You decide.<br />
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Think of me working on my group presentation with two 22-year-olds and a sore pinkie while you enjoy your weekends, Readers.<br />
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Hope Perlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10599511890390199730noreply@blogger.com0