Annal of a Pandemic: Success is about What We Can Control

The 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.

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.

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 Full Catastrophe Living, if you're breathing, more is right with you than wrong.

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.

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.

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? The Cazalet Chronicles, by Elizabeth Jane Howard.

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.

Too much information?

Desperate times and all that jazz…

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.


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.

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.

Spanx, Stoicism, and Success

Today, Readers, I would like to discuss Spanx. Spanx, in case you don’t know it, are modern girdles. Sure, they call them something different, something a little more euphemistic than “girdles.” Girdles got a bad rap and “went out” with Women’s Lib. Feminists don’t wear girdles. They wear Spanx, a.k.a. body shapers and smoothers. Although, come to think of it, “girdle” originally was something Athena might have worn around her hips to hold her tools or her keys. Girdle didn’t imply constriction originally; eventually, however, by the mid Twentieth Century, the term meant gut holding thing made of elastic. Today’s girdles, called Spanx, lack the erotic allure of the girdle and stockings, but they do suggest sadomasochism. Which is a fitting implication. Whatever they imply, they sure are efficacious. If by efficacious you mean they work well. And if by work well you mean push your loose flesh up and into various positions of smoothness. And if by “you” I mean “I” or “me.” Which I do. 

Now Spanx have been around for a good decade or longer by now. I think perhaps they date back to Girl Power. Or is that Grrrrl Power? Ironic tone intended. In any case, I have purchased the Spanx brief or two over the years, mostly when I was at a time of life - or let’s be honest, of body shape - that didn’t really require them. They worked well. But, Readers, I recently purchased a new pair of Spanx pantyhose, and I think they have “improved” them even more. Now, there is a bewildering array available to encase every body part and even to enhance some. And they come in different strengths, too. 

Well, I was going to an event - a wedding - to which I was planning on wearing a clingy jersey dress. Artfully ruched, of course, since I am probably now “a woman of a certain age” - although I’m not certain, since no one has actually defined that age for me. Which would, of course, defeat the point of the phrase, no doubt. But still. So, when I asked at one of my favorite boutiques for advice about the best color of pantyhose I should wear and learned I didn’t possess it, I headed for the Spanx hose and bought myself a pair. 

People, have you recently tried to put on a pair of Spanx pantyhose? It seemed like a good idea. After all, if I bought pantyhose, I would still need a pair of Spanx briefs, so I figured I’d get all in one. Let me just say, I could barely get both feet in them at once they were so strong. I couldn’t easily separate my ankles once I did get both feet in. Then it was like rolling copper pipes up my body. By the time I got them unbunched and over my hips, I was dismayed to discover they kept going up my torso. I realized that I would never be able to get them off to pee. That’s when I discovered that they were made so I wouldn’t have to. Ahem. Unfortunately, I had unwisely worn a pair of underpants under them, so I had to take them off again (sweating profusely) and then go through the whole pipe thing again. Exhausting. 

Why am I telling you this? I don’t know. It has nothing to do with success. But then again, my life lately hasn’t. The editor passed on my book proposal. This got me down, way, way down. But I am up again, thanks to my scaffolding of success. And that does have to do with success. After the devastating news, I spoke to my loving mirrors and my agent. I’m back at the writing. I’m going to write the book now, instead of waiting until we sell the proposal. I’m going to stop waiting for instructions from others and write what I want to write. I still have an agent who believes in my book. I still have my like-minded others urging me on. So I will go on. I’m taking a page from Epictetus, thanks to the MIL, who pointed me to a short piece on the Stoic philosopher in The New Yorker*. 

 

Milo is definitely a Stoic

Epictetus said, “Of things some are in our power, and others are not.” You should only focus on the things you can control, namely your “opinions” and “acts”. This is sage advice for our times. Did I mention Epictetus lived during the first century C.E? He was a Greek speaking Turkish man who was for a time a Roman slave. Yes, I did pause to consider that this philosophy of self-knowledge and self-restraint was developed by a slave, who definitely, as a slave, had pretty much no control over anything except what was in his head and heart. Yet, Epictetus was eventually freed and still (or finally, after being freed, when he had the time) he developed this philosophy. It made sense in his time and no doubt his advice makes sense now. It’s really, for any time. Timeless advice. Indeed, it sounds like the advice my father, who has been studying Greek for thirty years, has been dispensing of late. It’s root advice. Kind of Buddhist. Kind of Christian. Kind of modern psychological, too. It put me in mind of a psychotherapist I know from NIA class who said, in relation to current events, “We have to start by looking inward and changing ourselves.”

It also put me in mind of Stephen Covey’s Habit # 1: Be Proactive and his discussion of the Circle of Concern and the Circle of Influence. I've written about this here. The circle of concern is larger and contains the circle of influence. However, the only area an individual has any control over is the circle of influence. As you focus on that circle, the circle under your control, you affect the outer circle, too. But you have to return to what you yourself can control. This applies not only to the political situation, but also to so many situations. I can’t control an editor’s response to my book proposal, but I can control my book. 

So, in the New Year, I will try to be more Stoic. I started with Spanx. But I’m moving on to my writing. I will write the best book I can. And I am going back to my teaching and am planning to tutor disadvantaged kids in hands on mathematics to help them in school and to develop critical thinking skills. These things are within my control. They are in my circle of influence. The effects will, I trust, spread my circle of influence out towards the boundaries of my circle of concern. The only thing that will not be spreading out is my midsection, which will be girdled by self-knowledge, and (only when necessary) Spanx. 

*(http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/19/how-to-be-a-stoic)