Recollecting Impermanence

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. 

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. 

Buddhist philosophy feels impermanence is so important that everyone, layperson or monk, should contemplate it daily in the form of the five daily remembrances. They are as follows:

1. Just like everybody, I am of the nature to experience illness. I cannot avoid sickness
2. Just like everybody, I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot avoid aging. 
3. Just like everybody, I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape death. 
4. I am the owner of and heir to all my actions. 
5. I must be separated and parted from all that is dear and beloved to me.

Those last two are listed in different order, depending on the translation.

—Upajjhatthana Sutta 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

Not Every Post is Pithy: Professional Success Decision

Hello, 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.

Change is also inevitable and good. Repeat twenty times a day until believed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Persuasion 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, do being italicized, I can answer with something that makes me proud.

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.

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.

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.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow-5.jpg

Later, he updated his theory to say that we're motivated to a step beyond self-actualization, to self-transcendence.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcT73r0BDyaV9gaDr4gHn6koIMWAz_uOgBwf_jV6ABMIv3gkJDce

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.

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.

Thoughts?

* Here is a good summary, with visual aids, of Maslow's theories: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

Dignity, Always Dignity

Hello, Readers. I really don’t want this to be a political blog. It’s really a personal thing. But politics has intruded of late, and try as I might, like my favorite fashion blogger, to put it all aside and focus on what really matters, in terms of the blog, I have found that hard to do. I'm too busy wondering which situation is more right: One, that we should all be panicking because our civil liberties are about to abridged and we might all be heading off in trains to the ovens; or two, that this is an unfortunate situation that we must endure, but that the much-cited moral arc is bending, just at a lesser angle than we would like it to. It's really hard to figure out. And when that gets too hard, I have been indulging in a little retail therapy. Today it was these: 

That's a chocolate covered graham cracker

All of which makes focusing on my 'lil blog seem pointless. After all, what does one person's ideas about success have to do with the fate of our country? 

Yet, really, if you think about it, this situation is all about how we define success. The larger discussion is how we define success as a nation. The smaller is how we define it as individuals. Yet the two are entwined. The wealthy who voted for Trump want to hang onto their wealth, because that is how they define success. The working class whites who seem to have decided the election for Trump by a small percentage that turned out to be definitive because of the electoral college are mad. Why? Because they do not feel successful. 

Seems to me that without being overtly political, I can say this. There are a lot of people in this country who feel like failures. From where I sit, on my East Coast liberal elite high horse, parsing success and failure, I wonder if what I’ve learned about success for myself can apply to those Rust Belt folks whose jobs have been usurped by automation and factory closings. Would centering activities help them? A little meditation, yoga, or if you like your centering to involve lots of sweat, HIIT classes or a good jog? Well, frankly, yes, I imagine those things would help, to a degree. But let’s talk about meaning and purpose. Let’s talk about work. Because that’s what they’re talking about. Jobs. Just before the election I read an op-ed piece in my preferred liberal propaganda machine, the NY Times. This particular piece was a joint effort by the Dalai Lama and some dude (Arthur C. Brooks) from the American Enterprise Institute, which is, I believe, considered a conservative think tank. This piece was prescient, it turns out. It talks about why there is so much anxiety and despair in our society, which overall, on the books, is actually doing pretty well. Overall, things are looking up. Hey, the stock market has been doing great. But also, you know, finally wages have started to go up. And a lot of people have health insurance. Hell, things have been going so well that we’ve been able to devote time - so much time, so much ink - to issues such as whether a person who looks like a female but is technically a male needs to pee in the mens’ or womens’ room, as opposed to whether its okay to cart off a certain segment of the society and burn them in ovens or something like that. 

And yet, as the Dalai Lama so wisely writes, “Refugees and migrants clamor for the chance to live in these safe, prosperous countries, but those who already live in those promised lands report great uneasiness about their own futures that seems to border on hopelessness.”  

This unease, he suggest, is because despite the overall progress, there are specific areas of the country where these benefits are not accruing. And where the things that make people thrive are  lacking. Again, according to the Dalai Lama, “Virtually all the world’s major religions teach that diligent work in the service of others is our highest nature and thus lies at the center of a happy life.”

And diligent work in the service of others is exactly what is missing from the lives of so many lower income people. I'm not just talking about those white people in the Rust Belt. I'm talking about poor people everywhere or every color. People who lack jobs and prospects, people who are scraping by, or not scraping by but still working hard, lack the three elements of meaningful work: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.(Thanks Dan Pink for your book Drive, which introduced me to these ideas). Even if you’re working a low-skill job, if you feel that you are able, through your work, to gain some autonomy in your life, if you have the opportunity to master a small step towards a larger goal, then you can have a sense of purpose and motivation. 

Related to this idea is an op-ed in today’s liberal propaganda machine by Sherrod Brown, a senator from Ohio, titled, “When Work Loses Its Dignity”. Brown, by the way, starts out by saying this, “Cleveland — Start with this: When you call us the Rust Belt, you demean our work and diminish who we are.”

Oops. Guilty. I never thought about what Rust Belt means. But I get it. The idea of all the rusting, decaying defunct factories and machines scattered across the industrial Midwest is what “Rust Belt” implies. Yeah. Ouch. That isn’t very nice, is it?

Brown continues, “As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us, all work has dignity and importance, whether done by a street sweeper, Michelangelo or Beethoven. People take pride in the things they make, in serving their communities in hospitals or schools, in making their contribution to society with a job well done.

But over the past 40 years, as people have worked harder for less pay and fewer benefits, the value of their work has eroded. When we devalue work, we threaten the pride and dignity that come from it.”  So he’s about raising the minimum wage and preserving the executive order President Obama signed mandating overtime pay. 

So, while the Dalai Lama and Arthur C. Brooks recommend promoting both inner peace and outer security by teaching people they are not superfluous, Sherrod Brown suggests that paying them enough that they can feel like they’re going somewhere other than down, would go a long way towards restoring their dignity. People who feel they have dignity, who feel they are useful, who feel they have purpose, who are able to set goals for themselves and are able to consider things like inner peace, are people who feel successful. 

Banishing the Shoulds, Accepting the Wants

Here’s a confession. I have this terrible desire to watch this really cheesy dramedy the 8th Grader introduced me to called “Hart of Dixie.”   I like to settle down on the couch with her and ingest a couple of episodes. 

How long will it take for Lemon, who dresses like Doris Day, but is a viper at heart (hart?) to cry in this episode? When will George clench his jaw? And doesn’t Brick (Tim Matheson) look good all these years after “Animal House?” How long until Zoe has to hide in the bushes because she left her pants at Wade’s house? I love it. I do. But I feel like I shouldn’t. 

I should be doing something about my book. I should be drafting a blog post. Or reading something. Like one of the books I have to review. But instead, Sunday, I just piled onto the couch with my child and watched an episode. Or two. Last night - a school night, no less - we did it again.

Why is this such a confession? Perhaps some of you will be saying to yourselves, “What is the big deal? You like to watch this cheesy dramedy with your daughter - so what?” To you I say, “You do not need to read any further, unless you want to hear tidbits about the show. You clearly are already evolved and have learned the lesson I am here to teach.” Perhaps you think this.

To you I say, bless your little selves for lacking the shame that leads me to want to hide my shallow, TV-watching soul. 

To everyone else, I do have two or three justifications for this waste of time. How about quality time with my daughter? I’m not saying high-quality - but quality. Sharing an experience is worthwhile. It promotes connection, and connection promotes contentment. How about relaxing the brain by focusing on something different than my writing projects for awhile? That’s important to stimulating creativity, as is taking a shower, or a walk. 

That’s two. Three might be a stretch. 

Anyway, the point - and I do have one, Readers, and indeed it is my third justification - is that you never know where you’re going to find inspiration. There I was on the couch with the 8th Grader watching, and the husband was making pizza in the kitchen, around the corner, but where he could hear the TV. A scene came up, where shirtless, buff Wade tells off purported surgeon-turned-general-practitioner (GP) in the small town of Bluebell Alabama or North Carolina or Georgia - somewhere southern. As I was saying, half-naked Wade, who’s been having a fling with this supposed surgeon-turned-GP Zoe (all 97 pounds of her, with her heels and makeup on), tells off said Zoe for resisting the things that make her happy because of what she thinks she SHOULD want: being a famous doctor and having a professional boyfriend like George Tucker, Esq, who is also quite a fine looking man, but he doesn’t run around shirtless, sleep with lots of women, and work in a bar. Wade, with the wisdom of the slacker, tells Zoe he has finally lost interest in her, because she refuses to accept what she actually wants (him) and actually loves doing (being a small town general practitioner rather than a stressed out surgeon in NYC, all in high heels and floppy shorts, far too often, I must add). Wade informs Zoe, moreover, that he is going home to sit on his couch and play video games for a couple of hours. And he’s not going to feel one iota of guilt about it, either. 

Well, Readers, just at the moment that Wade’s words whacked Zoe with their homespun wisdom, both the husband and I commented that this was something I could blog about. Because success is not success unless you’re doing what you want to be doing. I mean, it could look like success; but it won’t feel like success. And if you’re doing what matters to you - not to your peers, your father, or your superego - you won’t bother about success anyway. Or happiness, for that matter. You’ll be doing what you want, and thereby making yourself happy. So you’ve got to accept what is important to you, and to set aside all those shoulds.

Thank you, Wade, for your wisdom and your amazing torso. Thank you, Hart of Dixie, for giving me back just a little bit of all the time I’ve invested in you. Thank you, 8th Grader, for being such good couch company and for getting me addicted to this almost, but not total, waste of time. 

A Conversation with Gretchen Rubin on Success & Happiness

Four years ago, a friend sent me The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin, author of several books, blogger at her popular blog, and co-star with her sister of the podcast Happier. I was going through a rotten time in my life, feeling like a failure, and the book took me by surprise. It inspired me to apply Gretchen’s idea of studying happiness to the question of how I could redefine success. I began reading up on the topic and blogging about it. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit with Gretchen Rubin  - in person - and ask her about success.

The New York Times described Gretchen Rubin as “the queen of self-help.” That’s a darn good moniker. I myself think of her as “the Martha Stewart of happiness.” Like Martha with her practical advice to create the Good Life, Gretchen tackles practical ways to create the happy one. But she’s a lot wonkier, i.e., more intellectual, than Martha. I had the good luck to review her latest book, Better Than Before, which is all about habits and how they contribute to or detract from happiness. She’s great at illuminating home truths we take for granted – for example, if something is easy to do we are more likely to do it.

However, her particular genius is breaking down complex ideas into practical, useful tips. She eschews deep introspection. We couldn’t be more different. If I have a genius, it’s for existing in a state of conflict or ambivalence, and examining all facets of it. Then making fun of myself.

What is success? What makes you feel successful? And how can you tweak the definition so that you can feel successful even if you actually, well, fail? These are the questions that led me to the small office at Politics and Prose Bookstore in my hometown, Washington, DC, sitting at a round table with the Queen of Self Help. She was generous with her time and her enthusiasm*, and offered some interesting ideas for me to consider, which I am now passing along to you, Readers.

Although before I get to the good stuff, let me just come right out and say this. I learned the hard way the first rule of interviewing, which is as follows:

Shut up so your interviewee can talk.

Okay, I’m no expert, so I don’t know if this is the first rule, but it should be. I tell you this after listening to the recording of my conversation with Gretchen Rubin. She talked, she responded, but oh my, so did I. Yes, I was aware, even as it happened, that she was drawing ME out, and yet still I talked on. Was I afraid of silence? Maybe that was it. Maybe that she herself was interested in probing ME was gratifying. That probably contributed to my blathering. Nevertheless, our conversation was revealing.

Willpower and Success: Yom Kippur Fast

Last night both girls went to services with me and my friends. As I mentioned, I go every year. I go to a nice liberal synagogue where the rabbi is a lesbian with adopted black children and nobody talks about Zionism. It's not embarrassing to be Jewish in a place like that.

The 12th grader wanted to fast, and then the 8th grader got curious about it, too. Of course they did. They are teenaged girls. I was not planning to fast today. I haven’t fasted since high school, when dieting was a way of life anyway. I have avoided it partly because I tend to get shaky if I don’t eat; partly out of fear of triggering a dormant eating disorder; and partly because I assumed I lack the necessary self-control to make it for a day without eating, so why confirm the worst? Also, partly because I just don't care. I'm a secular agnostic atheist Jew. 

This year, though, I was thinking about fasting more seriously than I have. Someone I sort of know mentioned she likes to fast because it helps her to feel grateful for all that she has and reminds her that other people go hungry every day. Very noble. More noble than I, or at least than I intended to be.  She got me thinking, though, and then the kids were interested.

Of course the 12th grader's comment was, “I’ll sleep ’til noon and then it won’t be that hard.” So when I woke up this morning I resisted food. I didn’t even have my morning glass of water. I decided that I could make it until noon. If my kids were going to sleep away half their fasts, I could just half-fast. And I made it until noon. It really wasn’t hard, especially once I allowed myself the treat of reading Pride and Prejudice in bed, instead of going for a run/walk. Then I found some Crest white strips in the bathroom and I put them in for two hours. I meditated for awhile. 

Finally, noon arrived and I made coffee with soy milk. I ate a tiny bit of muffin, too. And then the girls woke up and proceeded not to eat. Somehow that strengthened my resolve. They both have such great willpower. The 8th grader asked me to make her a grilled cheese sandwich around 1pm; but when the 12th grader said, “Oh come on, it’s only five hours until dinner,” she thought better of it. And I thought I could wait, too. Willpower is contagious, I guess. 

I think of myself as pretty weak-willed. I’m not big into deprivation. It makes me feel so lonely.  And the specter of reviving an eating disorder does lurk. I don’t want to go there. However, it feels pretty good to be getting through this day. Unfortunately, according to what I learned at temple last night, I’m not actually fasting correctly. This involves abstaining from water, food, sex, bathing for pleasure, and sex. I realize I wrote "sex" twice. I meant to add "leather." So coffee with soy milk and tiny bit of muffin technically means I broke my fast. 

Do I care? 

Is this a spiritual lesson? I mean, I’m thinking about my diet, my waistline, what the scale might say if I actually had a scale. I’m thinking that I can probably eliminate some snacking every day. These are very self-centered thoughts. Furthermore, it's clear that the 8th grader is competing with her sister, and I don't want them to totally show me up, either. None of the three of us knows why we're suppose to avoid leather today. This seems random and nonsensical. 

But. I am learning that I can actually get past my urges and that I have more willpower than I thought. That feels good. It is useful to know that I can force myself to endure a little hardship. I now know that I could get through much worse from necessity if I can push myself through this little thing by choice. We all want to know we’re made of strong stuff, and I have suspected that I really, really ain’t. No strong stuff here. I mean, beyond enduring childhood and all that. Maybe I’m wrong, though. Maybe I can have more confidence in my stuff. Maybe it is stronger than I thought. And I know that if others around me show their strong stuff, I can gain strength from that, too.

The 16-year-old is working on college essays on an empty stomach. The 13-year-old has just bathed - not for pleasure, I assure you, but out of necessity. She is torturing both of us by talking about grilled cheese and her “famous” (at least around our family) pesto sandwiches. I’m thinking about tuna and my mouth is filling with saliva; but we will be strong. We will make it. 

Success? Well-Being? Catch-22?

Ok, so last week I failed. I failed to put up a blog post. What is my excuse? Summer? Sure, that is part of it. 

Another part of it, though, is that I’ve been in a holding pattern for awhile now with my book proposal. My agent has done a great job of getting my proposal to the desks of editors at publishing imprints that I’ve heard of  - and now we are waiting. Some of the editors have passed, but all have had reassuring reasons. They just took a title too similar, for example. That’s one. That’s pretty reassuring. Of course, I am very quick to turn that into big frustrated sigh that I wish I’d gotten my act together and gotten that proposal to that editor SOONER, so that MY book was the one they were using to turn away others. Oh, sure a couple have said the story needs to connect more broadly to the issue of success or something like that - which it does, actually, or could, if I wrote the book. That is the plan, and maybe it doesn’t come across fully in the proposal. My agent says the proposal is good and doesn’t need tweaking. Stay the course, she said. Well, she didn’t actually say that, because she’s not a seventy year old bearded sailor, she’s a thirty-something savvy urbanite, so she said something equivalent. Something that I have apparently translated into nautical terms for no good reason at all. 

But anyway, it’s the closest I’ve been to publication and I’d love to feel really great about that. But of course, it’s very difficult to feel great about this situation, because no matter how promising these rejections are, they are still, you know, rejections. And at some point I’m going to have to have more than a good story about how I ALMOST sold my book proposal.

Except that the idea that I “have to have more than a good story” is an example of magical thinking. Who says? What entity is keeping track of my attempts in its virtual ledger-book of life frustrations? Is this entity actually going to tally things up at some point and say, “Okay, it’s Hope’s turn now for something really meaty, an unequivocal achievement she can brag about at cocktail parties?” Which is, you know, ridiculous, because I never go to cocktail parties, and because of my furtive, neurotic nature, bragging is not what would happen. I promise! An apologetic admission of my big, meaty success is all it would be, I swear. I might even keep it within the family and just put on a lot of makeup and make kissy-faces at myself in my bathroom mirror. 

So, no. Reality says that this really might be all I get, in terms of my publication story. That story might just be that my savvy, urbanite agent sent my proposal off to five, ten, twenty, fifty editors at imprints of diminishing impact and they all said, “Thanks but no thanks.”  I will have to live with that. And worse, I will have to live with having shared it with you, Readers. Maybe I will have gotten your hopes up and you’ll be discouraged for me. Maybe I will have annoyed you and you’ll have your anonymous schadenfreude. It’s a big risk. 

But would it have been better never to have taken the chance?

Actually, no. No, it would not have been better. And here is why. Regardless of my ultimate success, my well-being depends on it. Well-being is a good and worthy goal, if it can be a goal. Having a sense of well-being is probably even more important than feeling successful. So I was interested to read this post in Scientific American’s blog about positive psychology research to determine the elements of well-being. I’m now passing them on to you. Please note the one on the right:  

http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/PERMA.png

The one on the right is Accomplishment. As in, achieving stuff, reaching a goal, having success.  Accomplishing things - or at least feeling accomplished - is one of the five main components of well-being.

Ok, this is a catch-22, isn’t it? It is, indeed. These five elements of well-being are closely interrelated. According to research, people who scored high in one area of PERMA tended to score high in the other areas; the inverse is also true. People who scored low in one area tended to score low overall. 

So. Yes, this is a fix, in a way. Or maybe it is proof that I don’t need to waste time apologizing for wanting to feel successful and achieve stuff. 

Which leaves me with this advice: ultimately, you have to keep going, and you have to find ways to feel like you are achieving in life. The trick is to celebrate the steps along the way, the mini-accomplishments. Like close-calls with Big House Editors.

Interestingly, the two character traits that are the biggest predictors of well-being are Gratitude and Love of Learning, closely followed by Hope, Honesty, Love, and Humor. I can say I've got those, some days more, some days less.

So how are you doing? I think I’m actually doing fine. 

Aim Low: Tips from Stonewall Jackson & Other News

Did you miss me, Readers? Or did you note with relief the absence of posts from me? I know one person who probably felt relief. I’m talking about my friend - let’s call her X - who told me she preferred one post a week from me. Ouch! She said two per week are too hard to keep up with, considering everything else going on in life. And I get it. Oh my lawd, has it ever been like trying to get out of quicksand around here this week. School finally ended this week. Thank goodness, I must say, because both kids are going away this weekend. So this week I've been preparing for both kids to go to their respective camps. In opposite directions from one another and at the same time, of course. One thing that's flowing easily around here is money. It's flowing away like water, not like quicksand. Hiking boots, underwear, mini fridge, luggage. Both children’s clothes suddenly fitting them like sausage casings, and while they might not mind the look, I do. So, clothes. Toilettries. Why am I telling you this, Readers? Well, that’s the stuff that’s on my mind. 

So, a collection of random thoughts for you, some related just to my life, some to the topic I purport to focus on: success.

Last weekend we took a family trip to the Poconos to celebrate my father's 90th birthday. "We" were  his lady friend, my sister-the-psychoanalyst, her husband-the-psychoanalyst, and their cute children, and the husband and the 13 and 16 year-olds. Here are a few highlights:

• My father sinking balls at the pool table. Definitely a favorite. 

A ringer at 90

• My nephew having a hilarious tantrum when he realized he had to wait longer since his grandfather had sunk a ball. Tantrums are funny, Readers. Sometimes they’re even funny when they are your own children. I am fortunate that nowadays the only person who has tantrums in my immediate family is me. 

• Riding a horse called Pedro. Then trying to stand up and walk afterwards. 

The view from Pedro

• Watching my sister-the-psychoanalyst trying to stand up and walk after horseback riding. 

• A Belgian Draft horse named Junior. As I mentioned on Facebook, Junior triggered my latent girl-horse love affair, on hold since preadolescence. 

One of us weighs 2,400 lbs.

In other news, avocados have no protein. Just fat. Good fat, but no protein. This is according to the nutritionist. And I need more protein. Also according to the nutritionist. So, yeah, I have the good fats covered, but not the protein. Also the bad fats, but that’s another story. 

I am so stuck in quicksand here. At this very moment, I am trying to write a blog post while making dinner and answering questions about how to address envelopes, since the 13-y-o will have to communicate by snail mail whilst away at theater camp. 

Just a reminder about successfully developing and maintaining good habits. Yes, I was right, Brian my Pilates teacher was quite taken with the 5 Tibetan Rites and has been twirling ever since. I’m patting myself on the back here, although there is really no reason to do so. After all, how much credit can I take for introducing a fitness enthusiast to another fitness regime? It’s not as if I invented the 5 Tibetans. But we take our successes where they come. Aim low. 

Which brings me to the email that arrived in my inbox today from who knows where. Some fitness newsletter that sent a tip on losing weight that applies to successful habit forming of all kinds. Here’s the link. Anyway, the upshot is: Have a Fallback Plan for your goal. This is apparently based on Stonewall Jackson’s way of running his army. They never retreated and called it defeat. There was always a fallback point to which they could back up - and still attack. “Stonewall Jackson never told his troops to 'run away.' Before he ever went into battle, he picked a spot on the map to retreat to that was also a great attack position.” Psychologically, this was very astute. No one had to feel like a failure. Backtracking and scaling down were in the plan. 

I endorse this idea. The Fallback Plan, a.k.a Aim Low strategy. For example, take my morning routine. It used to be very long and complex and I got overwhelmed. Waking up and facing it became burdensome, and because I am a human being, I tried to avoid the burden. Now I have scaled it back to a minimum. It’s something I can do even when I’m running late, or sick. Just 5 Sun Salutations. Once I do those, I’ve succeeded. If I have time, I do more. I do the 5 Tibetans, or lots of physical therapy stretches for my hips and pelvic floor. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. All that matters in terms of calling it a success is getting those Sun Salutations done.  Apparently, Stonewall Jackson would agree. 

The best part is that once I do those Sun Salutations, I often feel inspired to go on and do the other stuff. But in the immortal words of my Inner Child, “I do it ‘cuz I want to, and not because you told me to.” I'm not overwhelmed by my goals, and that makes me want to try harder, rather than run away. 

Psychological games, Readers. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. 

For some reason, this reminds me of a conversation we had in the Poconos. My father and his lady friend were interested in some golf tournament that was happening. Talk naturally led to Tiger Woods, who has been playing very badly but keeps on going. My father's theory is that Tiger was trained from so early on to focus on only golf, he never developed any other resources or interests. It was just golf and his father, and now that his father has died, he has fallen apart. Instead of moving on and trying other things, he keeps screwing up at the only thing he knows. Which is a lesson to us all about the price of single-pointed success. It is too high. We have to have other ways to define it and ourselves. 

So, if you missed me, I am sorry. And if, like my friend X, you are relieved there has been a break in the onslaught of blog posts from me, then I am pleased. Next week, I intend to be back on track. 

Why Is Success A Jalopy?

Hello, Readers.
You may have noticed that I refer to success as a jalopy and wondered why. Well, please check out my explanation over here at the Huffington Post. I'll have a new post up here very soon.

Keeping Promises to Myself

I have twenty minutes until the 13-year-old’s friends arrive to celebrate her birthday with pizza and cake and sleepover. An hour after they are due, one of my book clubs is meeting here at our house for dinner and intellectual conversation and cake. No sleepover.

Intellectual conversation. Oops, there’s the timer for the cake!

Intellectual conversation might be a stretch. I’m intellectually depleted. Today I gave a thirty minute talk on Shakespeare and how the Gunpowder Plot affected him, so tonight, I relax. I relax as much as is possible with several 13 year old girls in the house.

Anyway, I now have fifteen minutes to get out a blog post. I could wait and write something amazing and coherent – but why start now? I’m trying to stick to my goals this week. I promised myself I would accomplish two writing goals, and so I shall. The first was to write that paper on Shakespeare for the women's club to which I belong. The second was to get out a blog post. 

Sticking to goals is one of those things I do intermittently. It hasn’t gotten to be habitual for me, yet. But I’m working on it. 

So. Last week I mentioned I would talk about the Pomodoro Technique. I'm not sure why we don’t call it the Tomato Method. It’s based on the timer that the method’s originator used, one of those kitchen timers that looks like a tomato. Or a pomadoro. If we’re Italian, which I guess maybe we would prefer to be. Because, you know, of that European sophistication. Pomodoro sounds so much nicer than tomato, I suppose.

But I digress. The tomato method is a fancy term for what I tell my kids to do when they have a difficult challenge: work steadily for a short time, then take a short break; then return to work. Use a timer if you like. Be sure to take advantage of the short break.

Now, I can report to you, Readers, that this method worked for me this week, as I was racing to finish my reading and note-taking and then to write my paper on Shakespeare. I didn’t use a tomato, though. I used my iPhone. I set it for 20 minutes. Then took a short break. Then back for another twenty minutes.

I have to say, it worked really well. And I even found myself wanting to work through my short breaks. Interesting, I thought. I made myself take the breaks, though, and they did refresh me.

So. Pomodoro-tomato-good sense technique, thank you.

By the way, it occurs to me that I worked my way up to the PomTech, I didn't just dive right in. I started, in fact, with the Inverse Pomodoro Technique. This is a method by which you relax and delay for a longish time, then get down to work for a short, non-threatening amount of time, then repeat. 

*

Also in the news this week:  My $13 chocolate bar is still here. It is not totally gone. I have managed to exercise my willpower and have made it last. 

Small victory. I will bear it in mind, as I deal with the reality that now I am the mother of two teenaged girls.

* 

Also, last week I mentioned I had some news. Well, here it is. I have a literary agent. That's all I can say for now. 

5 Tips for Success

Heh, heh. Gotcha again, didn't I? This post has nothing to do with success. I have things of import to report, but not yet. Instead, I offer highlights of my week.  Some of my readers might actually prefer this type of post to ones that purport to give information about success. 

1. I spent $13 on a chocolate bar. That's what I said. Thirteen dollars on a chocolate bar. Why did I spend so much money on a chocolate bar, you ask? Well.

• It was French. 
• The bar was made by a family business that specializes in small batch chocolate. 
• I was supporting the very great cheese store in Albany run by young cheese travelers. If you recall, in a previous post I mentioned eating candy that looked like olives. Also French. Also from The Cheese Traveler. 

The cost did give me pause. Thirteen dollars for a chocolate bar. I haven’t finished it yet. I’ve hidden it from my family. It’s meant to prove my worth. What I mean is that it’s my test of myself. My willpower. Can I eat it slowly and s-a-v-o-u-r it? Can I get really mindful about that chocolate and make a little go a long way? In other words: Am I a worthy human? That’s what this $13 chocolate bar is going to tell me.

Yes, I know the label reads backwards. I used PhotoBooth and that's what I got. 

Or maybe it’s telling me I’m an idiot for spending so much on one edible chocolate item.

2. I bought jeans. Yes, I know, this may not seem momentous to you, Readers. Unless you are female. If you are male, you likely stride into the jeans store, pick jeans with your measurements, pay for them, and leave. When you get home, and put them on, they fit. No big deal. But if you’re a woman, well, I think I can assume you know how momentous this is. Jeans. Jeans that fit. Jeans that look okay. Jeans from, of all places, The Gap. Never have I been so happy to learn that midrise and high rise jeans are back in style. And I didn’t have to pay $200 for them, either.

Not that I’m a style-obsessed person. Not at all. (It’s chocolate that obsesses me.)  It’s just that I happen to have a 16 year old, as I may have mentioned, and it hasn’t escaped me that while once she wore jeans that came up to just above her hip bone, now she is wearing jeans that end at her lower ribs.

Okay, I lied. I'm not really obsessed with chocolate. And I am interested in style. Perhaps more than I should be. But that's another story. 

This look, by the way, is one that only a 16 year old should try. For moi, it was midrise all the way. Locking in that muffin top, instead of watching it drip over the top of the jeans like a cake batter en route from mixing bowl to pan.

“How vivid,” as Auntie Mame might say.

Another reason to pass the $13 chocolate bar test. Square by square.

3. I bought a desk. Yes, I did. Me very own desk. In me very own study. No longer shall I take over the dining room table, because I have a nice, wide surface in me own study. This may not seem impressive to many of you, but I assure you, it’s a big step. Admitting I need a desk. You see, the desk and the need versus want thing is very complex in me. I mean, when it comes to having the basics covered, I do. I had a desk. It was just a very small desk. It was so small that I had to work on the dining room table if I wanted to have any reference materials or paper beside me in addition to my computer. And I have a dining room table. Well, technically, it’s an IKEA table with a plank of plywood on top, covered with a tablecloth. But it’s a table. So I had a desk AND a table. What possible reason could I have to justify a different desk?

See what I did there, Readers? I can bring myself down, way, way, down, by allowing that Superego voice in my head to say, “A desk. You think you need a desk. Somewhere in Africa (or India) someone is writing a masterpiece on a plank of petrified elephant hide. You don’t need a desk. You want a desk. And wanting is wrong.”

Shut up, Superego.

4. The husband went away to a conference, as is his wont every February. This is the signal to the universe to snow, to wreak some kind of havoc on the house, or to cause everyone left behind to come down with an intestinal illness. This time, it was snow, again. But I was ready. Or my plan was to be ready. Before he left, the husband gave me instructions on using the snowblower. 

Let me pause here to beg you, please, to refrain from telling me what wonderful exercise shoveling snow is, or how bad snowblowers are for the environment. I know. I know. But I have a bad back and a bad arm and, and, and. Lord, I sound defensive.

Reroute. Anyway, I was able to do everything necessary with the snowblower, except turn it on. There is a ripcord or something that you have to pull up and out really fast to get the engine to turn over. Well, I was too short to pull it out. Just a slight problem. Luckily, there is Facebook. I took my problem to FB. I believe this is called “crowdsourcing.” One of my Facebook friends suggested I stand on something. Genius! So, in the morning, which was a snowday, while the husband was tucked into his hotel in Nashville (This is a lot better than previous locations, such as Honolulu and San Diego. Talk about grounds for grudge-holding), I stood on a stepstool and got that machine going.

5. Got my 10,000 steps on Mrs. Withingston every day. 

Thank you for reading, readers. I have news for you soon. Also tips on success. Upcoming: Pomodoro Method. 

Mastery and Success

Seems that I have some readers who want to keep me on task. I’m basing this conclusion on the suggestions of books and Ted talks that come through my inbox. I appreciate them all! Diverting! And I get to watch things on a screen and consider it “work.”

One thing I watched was this Ted talk by someone called Sarah Lewis on the benefits of the “near win,” a.k.a. failure. Inevitably, the topic sailed right out at me, it being so salient to my situation. I am so very, very familiar with failure. My entire career has been a “near win.” That’s okay, according to Sarah Lewis, because failure is what we experience on the way to mastery. And mastery is ultimately more important than success.

Easy for Sarah Lewis to say. She’s the one giving the TED talk. She is an art historian and critic, and apparently has a book about failure and creativity. This isn’t about sour grapes, though. It’s about learning to cope with who I am.

Sarah Lewis defines success as a “moment.” That is a way of looking at it. I agree, I think. Success is a byproduct of effort. However, what she calls “mastery” I might call mastering; that is, engaging in working towards something. Or having a system for continuing to set and reach for goals. As I’ve mentioned before being engaged in that system, or in mastering a new goal, makes me feel successful. Purposeful effort makes life juicy and interesting.

This TED talk reminded me of something I read in Matthew Seyd’s Bounce, which focused on techniques for improving athletic performance. Most of practice is failing. For example, an ice skater spends every practice trying to refine upon and improve technique to accomplish the next challenge, the next turn, inevitably more complicated than the previous one. She spends most of that time trying and falling, trying and falling, until she manages her triple lutz. Then it’s on to the quadruple. When you think about it, most of the time, she’s experiencing the near win. But in context, it doesn’t feel like failure.

This also reminds me of certain teenaged ballet dancers I know. To hear them talk about their efforts after class, you'd think they would have quit years ago. They're almost never satisfied. They are always mastering, and so very rarely feeling successful. Yet they go on. And on. And on. The effort keeps them engaged, and they learn from their mistakes. They are always refining.

Well, I also feel that I have been more involved in the near win than I’d like to remain; yet I see the value of near-wins. Also, I feel that although success may be just a moment, it’s a moment I’d like to experience, and to memorialize, if possible with an attractive photo. Or an award. An award would be nice. But an attractive photo of myself would also be good. Or money. Yes, some money would also suffice.

Anyway, the point is that one has to be involved in mastering or mastery. One must be striving, according to Sarah Lewis, for more than one can possibly achieve. To do this, to keep reaching for the out of reach goal, one must have a functioning system of effort. One must have those habits, that routine, those goals, and that willpower. Otherwise, there will be no moments of success as byproduct. And Readers, I want a couple of those byproducts before I die.

The Lingerie of Success

I’m having such a block about writing a blog post, Readers. I don’t know why. That’s not entirely true. I do know why, in part. Because of me. Me and my tendency to lock myself up in internal conflict. Which is why I began this success blog – to unlock myself. That I’m still prone to locked internal conflict these many months – okay, let’s be honest, years – later, is discouraging. To put it mildly.

I’ve just come home from our local coffee house, the one with dozens of Dave Matthews Band posters framed along the walls, the one with the sunny back room and the darker, cooler front room, and the patio, with the music and the wifi and the mellow vibe. I had coffee there with a new acquaintance, let's call her Kay. Kay graduated a few years ahead of me from my alma mater. We met a few weeks ago at a local alumnae gathering. I was discussing whether I wanted to continue writing or go in a new direction, maybe back to school for a Ph.D in Positive Psychology, or an MSW, to become a therapist. And she invited me out for a coffee to talk about changing tracks, which she had done. She completed her Ph.D about four years ago.

Her take on the Ph.D: don't do it unless you really need it. 

Do I really need it? No.

Of course, eventually, I asked her how she defines success. “To be happy where you are in your life,” she said. After a second, she added, “But I don’t think many people define it that way.”  She told me one of her classmates wouldn’t contribute to class notes for the alumnae magazine until she worked for the State Department, because she didn’t feel like her life had been worthy of note. When she got that State Department job, however, she began contributing. She wrote things like,“My husband and I travelled to Far Off Place with the State Department. Our daughter is in private school in New England.” While these things were technically true, they finessed a couple of important details. Such as, that this woman was a secretary at the State Department, not Under-Secretary of State. Such as, that the daughter did attend private school in New England, but it wasn’t a fancy prep school, it was a school for disturbed students. Minor details adjusted to make her life sound golden.

We mused on why our education did this to us – created this need to come across as successful in a particular way. We came to no conclusions. However, I did recently listen to a Philosophy Bites podcast about Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s social philosophy. Apparently Rousseau, writing back in the  mid 1700s, believed that to feel good about one’s self, one needed to have self-love (self-esteem) and the approval and admiration of others. Amour de soi and amour propre, to use Rousseau’s terminology. It’s French, after all, and you know how I’m into French Chic. So here’s an example of success chic, dating all the way back to before the Revolution. An eternal and classic definition of the underpinnings of success. The lingerie of success, one might even say. Amour de soi and amour propre. The French chic definition of success. Times and fashions may change, but this is eternal, apparently. Just like French style.