Some More Stuff . . .

We reviewed our fears thoroughly.  We put them on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them.

The minute I stopped fighting or arguing I could begin to see and feel. 

Pray for a release from these fears.   "We had not even prayed rightly. . . We had always said Grant me my wishes instead of Your will be done.  At no time had we asked what god's will was for us; instead we had been telling him what it ought to be.  It is when we try to make our will conform with god's that we begin to use it rightly.  Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower.  We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with god's intention for us.

I'm not sure where I am with my fear of physical decline.  I'm still plagued by an overemphasis on what doesn't feel great.  What doesn't feel perfect.  This doesn't seem to be too reasonable an attitude, in the understatement of the day.

Here are my preconceived notions that I have about aging; namely, that it's all about loss and decline, when in reality it's all about acceptance and gratitude.

Some pain acceptance is going to be a good thing.  It's a fact of life that there is going to be decline - I've been experiencing it in a non-catastrophic way over the last twenty years.  Some decline is going to be inevitable.  Something is going to get me.

  
Gratitude
An extensive study was done where a group of people was asked to record their thoughts about gratitude while another group wrote down the stuff that annoyed them.  The results?  The group that kept a Gratitude List began to report a greater sense of optimism and well-being, and the effects actually began to show up in their blood pressure and heart rate and sleep patterns. The longer the gratitude people persisted at this exercise the the more pronounced the results.

One important caveat must be pointed out:  "It was not enough to be conscious of one's advantages; one had to be grateful for them.  Advantages alone - even awareness of them - weren't enough, perhaps because they can be lost.  Gratitude, on the other hand, was an affirmation that the world gave you things, and might continue to do so."

Happiness

Happiness shouldn't require effort on my part, and it should come as a kind of peace.  All I have to do is sit back and let it wash over me.  Life gives me what I need if I'm wise enough to see that.

Here's the strategy: spend my time and energy on the things that give me satisfaction, not lamenting those that I could once do - or experience - but now can't.  "Selective optimization with compensation:" make the most of what I have and compensate for what I've lost.

Happiness is not something to go out and seize.  Happiness is taking satisfaction in what is available right now, not hitching it to the future.  Too often my definition of happiness looks forward.  The future is tricky - the future might not come.

"I don’t understand happiness only as someone just always smiling and laughing.  It’s more like inner happiness, where you feel you have done everything right in your life, you haven’t made anybody unhappy.  You have a certain kind of peace and balance in yourself, and you are not anxious about what will happen the next minute or the next day.  You let it go and you don’t worry, and you lead a balanced life.  If you want the next moment where everything will be better, then you’d better do this moment right.  People often asked him if he was happy, he said, and his response was always the same: of course he was.

Live in the Moment

I won’t think about what I have to do - I'm just going to do it, hoping that’s what my fate is.  If I have any problems that emerge I'm going to try to leave them alone for now, let time work on it.  I shouldn’t dwell on anything that's problematic - I'm going to try to leave it alone and as time goes along see if it straightens out by itself.  I cannot deal with it, so you, god, now it’s your job.  You work on it and I'll do something else.  And usually they do it.  Trust—that’s what I advise if anyone asks.  You have to trust your higher power.”

It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.

Sense of Purpose

Those with a sense of purpose had deteriorated little in their memory scores even when the cellular damage in the brain was identical to those with dementia.

Becca R. Levy, a psychiatrist at Yale, has found striking correlations between people’s attitudes toward old age and how they fare in their later years, with effects starting as early as middle age. In one study, those who had more positive views of old age, measured by how they answered the question, “When you think of old persons, what are your impressions?" tend to experience more happiness as they age.

Not Too Good With People

"Or if my disturbance was seemingly caused by the behavior of others, why do I lack the ability to accept conditions I cannot change?"

Because it's a hell of a lot easier blaming someone or something else for my problems.  It's not me - it's you.

"But it is from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most.  The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being."

Total:  Complete; absolute; entire.
Inability:  Lack of the ability to do something.

Note here that the suggestion is that we are unable to form a normal relationship with another person.  Any other person.  There is no nuance to the word "total."

"We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society.  Always we tried to struggle to the top of the heap, or to hide beneath it.  This self-centered behavior blocked a partnership relation with any one of those about us.  Of true brotherhood we had small comprehension."

Well, at least there's the implication that we may have  a tiny ability to brother up.   A bit larger than non-existent but still barely measurable.

An egomaniac with an inferiority complex.
I may not be much but I'm all I think about.
Enough about me - what do you think about me?
I may be a piece of shit but I'm still better than you.

Enough and Intense

Enough:  A sufficient amount, number, etc.

The day is complete as it is.  I have nothing left to do.  I did some things and I didn't need to do any more things.  It's enough things already.  I can always make my list of things longer so that I'll never get all of them done, but what's the point of that?  I think The Little Man is feeling my vibe right now and he's digging it.  Do as much as you can - shoot high - but rest easy in your mind when you don't get it all done.  There's always going to be more shit to do.

Intense:  Strained; tightly drawn; extreme in degree; excessive.

I assume there are some easy-going people in The Program but I haven't run into any of them yet.  They must be attending meetings elsewhere.  I used to think my approach to life was mellow and low-key until someone pointed out that I was just stoned.  That's not low-key - that's out of it.  We are generally all-or-nothing people, perfectionists, intense, never satisfied.

It's enough today already.

The Horse's Ass

There's a young guy at my morning meeting who shares frequently about how no one else in the world drives as well as he does.  He's pretty funny most of the time but he can occasionally go off the deep end, yelling at people, following them down the highway, stupid stuff like that.  I give him a lot of shit about it.  He knows he's acting like an idiot - a dangerous idiot - but he still slips into this behavior from time to time.  Hopefully what happens is that he'll begin to behave this way more infrequently when he sees that he's the person being harmed.  I used to think that other drivers were doing things to me - Stevie Seaweed - specifically targeting me.  This is ridiculous of course - I am a faceless being in a vehicle impeding someone else's progress.  It took me a long time but I eventually got to the point where I don't really care about other drivers as long as I'm driving competently and they're not endangering me.  Because I've progressed to this high level of spiritual development I rub it in my buddy's face mercilessly.

So there's this man at my swim club who loudly presents his deranged political views in the locker room to anyone and everyone within earshot.  He's almost shouting.  I know his type, an inflexible ideologue who is only interested in telling you how it is.  You can agree with him or you can argue with him, secure in the knowledge that no amount of reason or wisdom will change his mind.  Normally I don't even allow him to catch my eye.  I really don't care what he thinks and I really don't care to argue with him.  I have enough trouble maintaining my serenity without getting into a political squabble with some horse's ass.

Yesterday he cornered me and went off on a passionate, weird riff about global warming.  I decided to engage - lightly, I thought.  I tossed off some platitude about trying to find a middle ground in most of the things that I do.

Good luck with THAT," he spat at me.

Man, if someone thinks that balance is a bad idea . . . that's not someone to talk to.  Nonetheless, we bickered for a couple of minutes before he slunk into the steam room, mumbling "good luck with that" over and over.

I have replayed this bicker in my mind over the last 24 hours.  Mind you, I don't give a whit about this guy and I knew that any conversation with him was going to end poorly, but I did it anyway.  I needed to be right.

There's a lesson for me in here somewhere.

It's Enough, Already

Enough:   Sufficient; all that is required, needed, or appropriate.

One of my hot tub friends at my swim club is a little old guy who's there every day.  We laugh about politics and imply that we're better than everyone else in a friendly, tongue-in-cheek way.  He does.  I really DO think I'm better than everyone else.

I asked about his weekend.  He said he took it easy and watched some sports on The Television.  Football, specifically.  I told him that I used to pay more attention to football but in this day of hyper-commercialization the length of the games has gotten longer and longer to accommodate all of the commercials and coach's challenges and replays and the like.  The games used to take three hours - today they bump up against the four hour mark, and that's too long for me.

He laughed: "So they take four hours.  What do I have to do that's so important?"

I loved that.  He has to be every bit of 85 years old and he's gotten to the place that he doesn't have to get everything done all of the time.  I think about stuff I wanted to do yesterday and didn't, and that this leaves me feeling unfilled some of the time.  But who gives a shit, really?  How important is it?  I'm working hard at internalizing the idea that whatever I get done today is enough.

Behaving Well . . . Sort Of

An update on the Stinky Dog Story . . . 

As you may or may not recall the dog owner offered to take SuperK and me out to lunch to thank us for taking care of Bob (not his real name but if I ever get a dog I'm naming him Bob and I don't care if it's a boy or a girl.  Bob is just such a great name for a dog.  Very workmanlike.)  At this point I was so annoyed at the behavior of the owner I demurred politely, hoping that he would simply go away and leave me alone.  I didn't want to have lunch with him and I certainly didn't want to subject my wife to the outing, either.  I'm on thin ice most of the time with her as it is.

Today before the meeting he came up to me and said: "Since you've totally ignoring me on a lunch date I'd like to give you a gift certificate so you can go out whenever you want."

I equivocated here.  It didn't seem right to tell him that I didn't want to spend any time with him.  But, then again, it didn't seem right to lie.  I mumbled something about SuperK being in a golf tournament and the occasion of our anniversary and that I'd get back to him on a day.

"Look," he said.  "I know you don't like me.  That's the way it is and that's OK."  He paused.  "But I still want to buy lunch for you." 

So here's the thing: I am obligated to behave well.  There is no excuse for me to behave poorly and the fact that someone else may have misbehaved is not an extenuating circumstance.  I need to step up to the plate and behave well, whether I want to or not, irregardless of whether or not the other person is behaving well.  That's my pact with myself - to shoot for the stars as far as my behavior is concerned.  I fall short and I fall short often but I need to aim high.

After the meeting he stuck $60 in my pocket and refused to let me return it.  He mentioned how much less stressful or help was for him and especially Bob.  He talked about visiting a kennel once and how crappy the conditions were.  This is why we took care of Bob.  It was a kindness, a service, an act of selflessness, that I ruined by not behaving well, which is the only thing I have to concentrate on during the course of a day.

Another fucking amends.  The only reason that I try to behave well is because I hate to make amends.

Bleeding Deacon Seaweed

I'm a bit of a stickler for meeting protocol.  I think that we should be able to say whatever we want in a meeting as long as we're not giving advice directly to another member, avoiding the famous but deadly "cross-talk."  I also think that we should honor the procedural rules that have been established as to how a particular meeting should be run.  For instance, if the format for a particular day is to read out of a particular book then the leader should read out of that book, whether he wants to or not.  I'm also not shy about correcting this when someone else diverts from the format.  Out loud.  In the meeting.  In front of everyone.  Mind you I have absolutely no authority to do this except for the authority that I've given to myself.  This usually goes over reasonably well but not always.

So a few weeks ago I was asked to chair a meeting where we read out of a particular book.  We also have a meeting where the leader gets to select a paragraph out of this particular book that's meaningful to them and then share about that section.  On this particular day, however, we pick up at the spot where we stopped at last week.  The short section we read didn't spark any deep and meaningful thoughts so I went ahead and read the paragraph that I had selected when I still thought the format for the day was Speaker's Choice.  I also made a snide comment about the dry nature of the section I was supposed to talk about.

The first person to share was a woman sitting right next to me.  A friend of mine.   She politely disagreed with my assesment of the quality of the selected text and then proceeded to share her thoughts about it.    The next person followed her example and so did the next and so on and so on.  I finally thought: : "Wow, they're ignoring me and following the format despite my attempts to bend the world to my will."

My face flushed briefly as I realized what was happening.  My Will was being subverted.  As it should have been.  

I got a good lesson on how to handle a Bleeding Deacon that morning.