People are funny. We like “certainty” – a lot. Which is sort of inconvenient considering just how much uncertainty there really is in life. In the world. In the way events play out over time. Change something, and other things also change. Make a choice, and events unfold differently than if a different choice were made. Seems like something that could be very useful, if embraced and understood, but understanding uncertainty is not the easiest thing… Perhaps better to simply accept it?
Uncertainty often comes with a measure of anxiety – maybe that’s why we seem to dislike it so much? (I say “we” because observation strongly supports that this isn’t a “me” thing at all; it’s quite common.) It’s often easier to just lock in on a particular way of thinking, or a particularly useful piece of “knowledge” in some moment, and insist on the rigid truth of it, compared to gently accepting a lack of knowledge and making room for curiosity (or unknown truths to come). It’s scary to be uncertain (sometimes).
I sip my coffee, thinking about yesterday. I drove home feeling more and more ill. Knowing a colleague had tested positive for COVID that very morning, and that I’d had some measure of exposure, I allowed myself the thought that maybe it was “all in my head”, just from hearing that news. My Traveling Partner looked at me when I arrived home; I definitely did not look well. So, maybe it isn’t COVID (test was negative), but I’m down with a bit of something or other. Uncertainty. I don’t even know “how sick I am”, or whether this will pass quickly. I just feel like crap. I woke after sleeping something more than 13 hours, interrupted briefly a couple times. I know better than to return to sleep without having my coffee; that’d just be an unwanted headache later. So. I’m up for a little while, sipping my coffee and thinking my thoughts, which are sort of gloomy and unsettled, probably because I’m sick and just not feeling my best. Harder to be positive.
Aches, pains, symptoms… The coffee is good, though, and I’m “okay” for most values of okay. There’s nothing really going on. It’s just a sick day at home. I’m grateful that it isn’t a whole lot worse. I’m grateful to have sick days. I’m grateful for an employer who strongly discourages working while ill. I’m grateful for a Traveling Partner who cares for me, and the Anxious Adventurer, who was willing to run to the store for sick day supplies so I didn’t have to go out and spread this around. This is a good place to be. It could most definitely be worse.
I reflect on the value of “leaning into” uncertainty, and take a moment to contemplate what could be driving my background anxiety lately. Work, maybe? I face things head-on. I look over my resume. I love the job I’ve got, but there’s still “uncertainty”. The human mind is an amazing thing; it’s hard not to be aware (on some level) that my average churn point professionally as been around two and half years for almost two decades. I think that’s on my mind as I approach my two year anniversary on this job. Instead of being fussy and anxious, I update my resume and reflect on the work, the job market, the opportunities (or lack of) for advancement. I think about “what I want to be when I grow up” (still my favorite way to frame the question of what to do professionally). Most of my job changes have been about better benefits, or more money, some have been about redirecting my skills into a different role or industry. I think about money, and debt, and the distance from here to retirement. I think about life. There’s a lot of uncertainty. Running away from it doesn’t change that. I make some updates to my resume, and look at job opportunities in my areas of interest. Curiousity is a soothing anodyne to anxiety, and I use it frequently. It has been more effective than any of the drugs I was ever given. (CBT for the win!)
I breathe, exhale, relax, and let all that go for awhile. My head aches, but I don’t know if it’s “just the usual headache”, or if it’s “viral”. Uncertainty. Doesn’t matter. Once this coffee is gone, I’m going back to bed anyway. I decide on a video game to “go with” the last of my coffee. I’ll begin again later.
How long can you sit on hold before you feel angry? Once that point comes, when the person on the other end finally gets to your conversation, how do you feel? How do you behave? What is that experience like for you? Okay… and what is that experience like for them?
…It is a Wednesday afternoon, and a busy work day. I’m on hold as I write this…
…I’m scheduling – or trying to – an important appointment for my Traveling Partner. I’ve been on hold for awhile now (22+ minutes), following our initial exploration of available dates/times. When the Scheduler returns to the call, she’s identified an available care provider in a good timeslot, on a day we can make work. I’m grateful. Is it aggravating to wait on hold for 23 minutes to complete this task? I guess, sure, (especially considering the dreadful hold music). On the other hand, not being a dick about it and just doing the needful in a pleasant (and accepting) way resulted in a better outcome – the appointment is made, and it fits in with other scheduled plans, and isn’t at some ridiculously inconvenient time, and the person on the phone was happily willing to help me (likely in part because I wasn’t penalizing that person for the circumstances). That’s as nearly ideal as scheduling an appointment can get, is it not? Why bother being angry over it? The time it took? The fact that it was necessary at all? That seems both ridiculous and petty. (Things take the time they take.)
…Patience is sometimes easier said than done, I know…
So many healthcare providers are trying to meet too much need with too few resources. Raising patient costs doesn’t close the gap created by too few doctors, nurses, technicians, specialists, or administrative and domestic staff needed to meet the need for care in a community. Anywhere. Lashing out at someone whose job is to be helpful is not the shortest path to the desired outcome, for sure. So, I generally try to do better than that when I have to be on the phone with someone (in spite of my dislike of being on the phone, generally).
…Or in slow checkout lines…
…Or queued for some event…
…Or trying to find parking in a busy area…
…Or when I’m frustrated by something but having to also deal with another human being about something else altogether unrelated…
…Or when I’m feeling anxious and other unrelated shit seems to be going wrong “for no reason”…
I guess I’m saying that when we make room to feel our feelings, then also make a committed (mindful)(self-aware)(disciplined) effort to also behave in accordance with our understanding of our “best self”, and treat others with kindness and patience, and take steps to manage the potential volatility of our emotional experience of the moment, everything that flows from that skillfully managed moment turns out better than it would have if we’d lashed out angrily, gone to pieces, or punished the people around us for the experience we are having. Long sentence, but it is what I was hoping to communicate as a single idea. It takes practice. I know my own results vary – so I am assuming yours likely will as well. Still, we do become what we practice.
…When I practice patience, I become more patient, in a broader variety of interactions…
I took those notes while I waited on hold. I made the appointment, and moved on with my day with very little aggravation. Turned out to be a pleasant afternoon. I woke up this morning, a little early, head kind of stuffy, but generally merry and feeling okay. It’s a new day. A new opportunity to practice the practices that create a good life and healthy interactions with the people in my life. A new cup of coffee.
Ah, but how to “practice” such things could be a question, eh? I’ve got good and bad news – and it’s the same news – the “how to” is “easy”, inasmuch as it is not complicated, but it is also quite “hard”, because there is a measure of trial and error, repetition, studious self-reflection, and failures that precede new attempts, involved in practicing such things. The tl;dr is that I’ve simply got to do the thing I wish to practice in the fashion I’d like to see myself handle such things – and if I fall short, I’ve got to recognize that, acknowledge it, accept it (and any consequences), understand that failure, and keep working on it – through all the unsuccessful well-meaning attempts, and the likely lack of consistant positive reinforcement from others (because, of course, they are having their own experience). Doing better than my current best is reliably always a “work in progress”, and it’s a process of incremental change over time, which can be somewhat unsatisfying. If you change what you practice though, change itself is inevitable.
We have so many opportunities to do better. We also have a bunch of opportunities to do worse – to escalate interactions that start going wrong, to inflame emotions beyond what is appropriate, to create conflict where none existed, to hurt each other when we could be lifting each other up. We have choices. Making an effort to choose wisely in each interaction, each day, is itself a choice. What are you really going for? Where does your path lead? How do you want to be remembered?
Sometimes it’s hard to wait in line (or, to wait at all) – but the payoff is the thing we’re waiting for, the wait time itself is largely irrelevant. Sometimes it’s hard to be patient in the face of silly questions or constant interruptions when we’re trying to get something done – but the quality of those interactions are often far more important in our lives that the thing we’re focused on doing. Sometimes it’s hard to listen considerately while someone is talking – even though we asked the question being answered, and wanted the information. These are all moments that could use our best self (and more practice). I sip my coffee and think about the many times I’ve made shit so much worse than it had to be. Being entirely human, I’m likely to do that again in the future at some point – but that isn’t going to stop me from doing my best each day to be the best version of the woman in the mirror I can imagine, with what I know now. I’ll simply keep practicing. We become what we practice.
Stick with the basics – it’s a great place to start.
Make it as difficult as you want, I guess. Complicate things as much as you think you must. Telling yourself it “wasn’t your fault” or that you “couldn’t help it” when things go awry doesn’t change the fact that you had (and made) choices. I personally think it is generally a poor choice to willfully make shit worse than it has to be. It’s worthwhile to practice doing better than that. I think back to the abrupt and very final end of my second long-term relationship (and one that felt, at that time, truly committed and “forever”) – it was over circumstances that spiraled around “making things worse”, until the last thread of my affection was stretched to a breaking point, and suddenly snapped. In mere hours I went from needing to “take a minute” to calm myself, to wanting to have “a couple days alone” to think things over, to “we’re done, I’m out of here”. It probably didn’t have to go like that, but it definitely did – and it was a choice. I sit reflecting on that for some minutes, and comparing that to the way my Traveling Partner and I typically work things out together (it’s very different, and I am grateful for the effort we both put into talking and listening).
“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic w/ceramic and glow details, 2012
Choosing not to make things worse is both a choice and also a practice (if you make it one). I look out into the cloudy sky and think about emotional storms, and emotional choices, and how significant emotion is in this human experience. We are creatures of both emotion and reason, and we tend to lead with emotion, and respond to emotion before reason ever joins the conversation. That’s not a character flaw, it’s what we are. Our emotional intelligence is probably pretty critical to our success (and survival), overall (depending on how you define success, sure; my definition includes a reliable feeling of well-being and contentment).
…When I practice calm, I become a calmer person across a broader variety of experiences…
Developing one’s emotional intelligence is not as easy as saying it is an important detail. I get it. We don’t typically include such things in K-12 education (when it is most needed) in a structured informative way. Few of us grow up in families with even one emotionally intelligent adult in the household, based on my limited experience and casual observation. We don’t put much time (and probably no funding) into developing tools that can be shared with people who are seeking to do this work themselves. Like a lot of things, it’s complicated by various hidden agendas and resource limitations. When I began down this path, myself, the help I needed was sometimes not easy to find. I was fortunate to find a good therapist whose expertise was a good fit for my needs (and fortunate to be able to afford it at the time I needed it most). My reading list has some items specific to emotional intelligence (although we don’t all learn through reading). It is unfortunate that some of the best work on the topic is sometimes a bit of a slog to get through, requiring what feels like “real work”. (If I were pressed to make specific recommendations, I’d probably point to Buddha’s Brain, and Emotional Intimacy for the studious, and The Four Agreements for those looking for a quick introduction with illuminating allegories.)
…You’ll have to walk your own path, and do your own work, this is not a negotiable detail…
It’s a journey with a lot of stairs to climb…
I sit with my coffee and my thoughts awhile longer. How did I even get to this place, this morning? Oh, right, reflecting on the importance of being patient (and pleasant) while on hold trying to make an appointment for my beloved. I chuckle to myself, aware how valuable those skills are in so many day-to-day interactions. My results vary. I keep practicing. I glance at the time – it’s already time to begin again.
I woke with an old advertising slogan in my head from the 1950’s (that’s how “sticky” some of them can really be!) – “the pause that refreshes”. It’s a source of amusement for me, sometimes, how easily “repurposed” such slogans can be. This one does not immediately call to mind, for me, the originally intended beverage. Instead, this slogan reminds me that a pause before committing to action or decision-making can give me time to more carefully consider the moment. A pause can give me real rest in the midst of stress or turmoil. A pause can allow me to “reset” a difficult moment. Taking a moment to pause can allow me to pull myself back into the present moment, and to act more mindfully, with greater self-awareness. A pause can be a needed moment of self-care on a busy day.
This morning I had no idea what to write about, and earlier thoughts that seem cogent or meaningful in some share-worthy way had slipped away on the drive home from the trailhead. I took a moment to pause and reflect for a time. Handy. Here I am. 😀
It’ll be another hot day, today. My more-than-typical-for-a-summer-morning pain hints that the weather may cool off, and there may be rain coming. Suspecting my pain to be potentially misleading me with such correlations, I check the forecast. There it is – a chance of rain, two days out. Huh. I grumble a bit to myself. Pain is no super-power, and I’d rather just look at the forecast now and then than have to deal with the pain I’m in. I breathe, exhale, and relax. This human experience isn’t always a comfortable one. There are moments to embrace, and there are also moments to endure; I don’t get to choose the moment, only my reaction to it, and the steps I take to deal with it. Sometimes a pause helps me sort things out.
I sit for a moment, sipping water. It’ll be a hot day, and I’ll be out in that later on, driving to an appointment. I’m grateful to feel chilly in the AC, for now, as I sit with my thoughts. I make my choices. I walk my path. Sometimes it helps to pause and consider my options, before I begin again.
I’m sipping my coffee on a routine (for most values of “routine”) Monday. I consider checking the news feed for whatever might be genuinely newsworthy, but decide against it; I don’t feel like wading through the bullshit sponsored content, partisan lies and ill-intentioned spin, and clickbait intended to grab my attention while some unknown other grabs my data. None of that shit rises to the level of “news”, and I definitely don’t need to be told (again) that billionaires are self-serving, or that “the government” is corrupt.
There’s a “heat warning” for this area, over the next day or two. This is a type of weather warning that did not exist when I was a kid. This kind of heat, in a lot of places around the country (and the world) did not exist when I was a kid. For me, personally, this defines “climate change” – the heat. Hotter summer days and more of them, in an area that once laughed about summer’s lack of warmth in “June-uary” and enjoyed fairly frequent drenching rain, even in summertime; there’s a lot less laughter about that, now, and a lot less summer rain.
I’m finding the outcomes of the terrible (and cruel) decision-making of the current US administration pretty disheartening, and thoroughly objectionable. From refusing to regulate AI or protect creator IP, from censorships to tariffs, this government is succeeding… in bringing about a new dark age. What to do about that, though? I sip my coffee and think about how to bring the light of the world to the dark future unfolding right now… I probably sound overly dramatic. Still, here we all are, eh? So…what to do? I have some thoughts…
Read (and buy) actual bound books written exclusively by human authors. Talk about them.
Consume content (while the internet is still available at all) created by human creators. Share that.
Enjoy, support, and buy real (original) art created by living human artists – and buy it, where you can, directly from the artist(s).
Learn practical skills and buy the tools required to do the things. Especially skills that don’t rely entirely on electricity, internet connectivity, and the existence of the power grid – people with useful skills always have a place within their community. Learn to make things.
Be curious and seek information (ideally from vetted sources with reliably recognized expertise).
If you have land (even enough for a small garden, or containers on a patio) grow food – particularly heirloom varieties unburdened by patents, or reproductive restrictions.
Connect with other real human beings in IRL places as frequently as you can – and have real conversations about real world concerns and circumstances, and current events and find common ground together. Yes, even with strangers.
Practice good self-care – for yourself – and practice kindness and compassion – for the rest of the world.
Spend your limited financial resources in your local community on goods and services made by local people, wherever/whenever you are able (or can afford) to do so.
Explicitly communicate your expectations, your “wishlist”, and your “demands” or dissatisfaction to your elected representatives – even if they are not of your party or don’t share your beliefs. Do it often.
Lift each other up. (There are already more than too many people and agencies out there in the world tearing people down.)
Don’t let your voice be silenced. Consider your options, and do your best to make choices that will tend to create the world you wish to see. Don’t let your fears or insecurities, or your petty biases or hostility to this or that cause or belief system cause you to become a monster that you can’t face in the mirror each morning (or, you know, don’t become a monster at all). Choose, each day, to be the person you most want to be, regardless of how vile and terrible the world around you seems to be becoming. Who you are is about you, not them. Do you – for you.
I guess the tl;dr is… don’t just bitch about the shit going on around you, make choices that are different than that, and speak truth to power. (I say that like it’s easy – it is not; it requires constant effort and practice.)
I breathe, exhale, and relax. The landscapers are already mowing this morning, likely due to the extreme heat expected later. If ICE showed up right now and started hassling those landscapers… would I take any action? Would you? It’s a worthwhile thought exercise. You should probably know what your values really are, there. What would you want of bystanders if ICE came for you? (Because, you know, at some point they may – we’re living in dark times.)
Where do you really stand in this new dark age? Here’s a test of your values and ethics that you may find interesting… a simple thought exercise. If you were offered a job (just a salaried job, no guarantees for continued employment) for millions of dollars in annual salary, with the explicit understanding that the results of your work would be directly responsible for putting thousands of people in poverty, reducing the quality of life of many millions of others, and likely result in a notable number of actual deaths…but you would be lifted out of poverty (for as long as you held that job) and live in comfort with your family, debt free with the world’s goods at your fingertips – would you take that job? I don’t need to know your answer – but you do. Are you one of the good guys, or just another self-serving asshole prepared to destroy the world so you can have a [fucking yacht, or Lamborghini, or whatever your symbol of fantastic wealth happens to be]? It’s an important question, and whether you answer it in words or not, the consequences of your actions and choices will tell the world what your values really are.
Yeesh. So grim and grounded this morning. lol I sip my coffee grateful to have a moment of time to explore thought exercises, and questions of ethics and values. The whole picture of my own adult life has not been characterized by wise ethical decision-making, or consistently living my values well. It’s been a very human journey, and when I set off down this path I not only didn’t know where it was leading me, I didn’t have a clear understanding of who is this “woman I most want to be”, in the first place. I suffered from a lack of honest self-reflection, and a lack of useful questions to light my way. Sometimes I still find myself “wandering in the dark” – and there are certainly those among us who would greatly prefer that we all “wander in the dark” without finding a sense of ourselves or understanding what we value, and what we want to see in the world. It is sometimes possible to vanquish those monsters simply by shining a light on the path.
I finish my coffee hoping to succeed in being my best self today. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to do my best on another day. It’s time to begin again…
I’m sipping my coffee grateful to have it, and grateful to be done with the budgeting and payday stuff. I didn’t sleep as restfully as I’d have liked; my sleep was interrupted by my Traveling Partner (I think? Was I dreaming it?) who woke me up for some reason, in the wee hours. My sleep after that was less than ideal, restless and plagued by strange dreams of stress and failure. I woke up feeling cranky and anti-social – and I’m grateful that so far the office is empty of other voices. It’s just me, here, now. I’m good with that. I’m not really “fit for company” quite yet.
…So cranky…
I sip my coffee and find myself vexed by “what ifs” and “if onlys”, and this headache (which is reliably worse when I sleep poorly). I’m cross with myself for doing such a shitty job of adulting when I was younger, and I’m annoyed that I failed completely to “look after” my future self, from that youthful vantage point. I didn’t make much money back then… Hell, I don’t “make much money” now – just an amount that covers the expenses with some small amount left to protect against emergencies to come, and I’m grateful for it. It could be worse. I do okay these days, though I’ll never be “wealthy”. This morning, I find myself wishing and yearning and frustrated that I’m not in a very different place (for example, already retired and living contentedly in my “leisure years”, spending my hours painting, writing, reading, and gardening). These are the sorts of thoughts and feelings that often develop out of restless nights, fatigue, poor self-care, and the sour moods that result from those experiences. They aren’t any more “real” than the dreams that plagued my sleep – and certainly they have no power over me that I don’t give them myself. They are the sort of thing that can generate a fuck-ton of “second dart suffering”, or become the kernel of discontent that can later become a major meltdown or moment of drama “for no reason”. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and do my best to let that shit go. There’s no value in letting it fester.
Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Repeat as needed.
I sigh to myself. Things are not “perfect”, but they’re okay for most values of “okay”, and I’m fortunate – and grateful for my good fortune. I’m also pretty cranky, and I’ve got a headache. I work on keeping those experiences separated from each other, in my emotional experience of the moment; they are not in any way actually related to each other. Human primates are weird. When we’re cross or frustrated there’s this odd tendency to make it about “everything”, connecting dots that aren’t really connected, conflating one thing with another, and blowing shit way out of proportion over… nothing much at all. No doubt it served some evolutionary purpose intended to ensure our survival as a species, but it sure as shit isn’t very helpful now. lol
As with any choice, there are verbs involved.
I drag my consciousness back to this moment, right here. This moment in which I am 100% fine, thanks. It is an ordinary enough Friday morning, an ordinary enough summer day, the beginning of some new moment unrelated to the moments I’ve left behind – a new beginning. I’d honestly like to begin it with a damned nap – or some sort of notable relief for this fucking headache – but realistically, there’s this work day ahead of me, and I’ve got shit to do. “Nap time” is not now. I sip my coffee and remind myself that resources are always limited in this finite mortal life (for most people). It is the nature of resources to be limited. Time or money, or precious goods cultivated or dug from holes in the ground. Limits exist. So, we budget, and plan, and do our best to make all the pieces fit in our lives. It’s a very human experience.
The clock ticks off the minutes. I sigh again, frustrated by life’s limitations. Frustrated by feeling tired and cross with the world. Vexed by humanity.
…I let all that go, again…
Finding a pleasant distraction in recent photographs can help lift my mood.
I flip through pictures from my camping trip to distract me from my irritability. I feel my face soften into a smile, and my shoulders relax. Some moments feel harder than they really are. We make so much of our own stress, and behave as if it is external to us. I know I can choose differently – it’s just not always easy to shift from intention to action. The effort matters quite a lot. The choices too. It’s necessary to accept that things can change – and that I can change them.
…I’m almost out of coffee…
Each time for the first time, each moment the only moment. ~Jon Kabat-Zinn
The clock ticks on. Limitations do exist. Choices and opportunities for change exist. The journey is the destination. In practical terms, I create my path as I walk it – the route is mine to choose. So… yeah. I’m cranky right now, but I can choose differently. Fuck I wish saying as much made it easier to do the verbs! There’s real effort involved, and I’d frankly rather just take a nap and begin again later… that’s not on today’s “menu”. lol It’s already time to begin again – and I’ve got choices to make, and verbs to do.
Evening Light 