Drama Revisited

My extended family (brothers and sisters) are going through some stressful times right now.  As much as my heart goes out to them, I want to punch them in the neck because they are adding to their own stress and they do not need to do that.  

When you are under stress you will process everything with a filter that is uniquely your own.  In times of great stress most people will default to falling back and defending themselves against anything that feels like a attack, threat, or slight.  And because we all hate for people to see us under stress, you are probably adept at hiding from most people when you are under stress.  So when people do not know you are under stress, they can easily say and do things that feel incredibly insensitive or insulting to you. 

If your default is to defend yourself first, without understanding what is going on, you are going to spend far more effort, time, and emotional time on things than you need to.  It is adding drama, when drama is the last thing that is needed.   

People resolve things for themselves when they go back to the beginning and understand what was going on then.  This can take days, weeks, or months to do and sometimes (sigh) much longer.  It almost always can be avoided with that up front effort of trying to understand what is going on before you act. Next time it comes around, take a couple of minutes and understand what is happening before you react, in a lot of cases it is not going to be just about you.

Do not participate in other people's drama.  If you need drama, spend the afternoon at a movie theater.  I don't share in the drama of my siblings because I understand it is made by them and not me.  I love them all without qualification.  Don't always like what they do, but always love them.  And as much as I hate to sound like a greeting card, love really does conquer all.

Make sure you call Uncle C.  He turns 50 today.

Love Dad

The New Guy

I believe in Karma.  You can plan that the things that you do in words and deeds, will be done to you in return.  Everytime you reach out to someone, someone will reach out to you.  For every punch in the head or heart you deliver, you will receive one in return.  The great part of Karma is that you are never, ever going to know when you are going to receive what you have given. 

It is said a dozen different ways in a dozen different religions but they are basically talking about Karma.  I found out about a great example of this.  I used to work for this guy that was a giant dick to everyone who worked for him and around him.  If you have not worked for this guy, you will.  It is a guy who believes that a position in an organization or a specific title gives him license to do this.   I did not know why he left the organization, but no one was sorry to see him go.  

I heard today that he was hired back in the same organization as a supplemental employee.  Supplemental employee's work under the direction of full time employee's.  He is back working for the people he treated the worst.  In the finest Buddhist tradition he has had a rebirth in his work life. 

I had a pang of empathy for him because he is not only the new guy, but he is going to have to work hard to erase the perception that he is still a giant dick.  I hope everyone recognizes that is the second chance that we all want.  I hope hope he takes advantage of the opportunity.  I also hope people do not look at it as a chance to get even, because like him, we are all going to be the new guy a lot of times in life. 

Sometimes you forgive people not because they deserve it, but because it gives you peace and is the right thing to do.  As good as punching someone in the head or heart feels, it is always temporary and like the fat kid eating cake it will cause you a lot of grief later.


Love Dad

Bum Fighting

We are all God's creatures.  God gets props for his infinite wisdom and his unqualified love for everyone.  He does not get enough recognition for the magnificent sense of humor that he has.  He will bring the occasional shitbag, dickhead, just plain mean, stupid, or clueless people into your life from time to time. This is to exercise your free will.  This is Gods way of seeing if you will participate in the spiritual form of Bum Fighting.  

When two bums fight, you never think that one of them is right, you only see a pathetic bum fight.  There are plenty of times to fight for what is right.  But most of us spend far too much time fighting or arguing with the people who are not the least bit interested in anything except being right.  Being right at the expense of another person, is never going to be the right thing.  Being right is always going to be a bit of a compromise.  It is not planting your flag at the top of the mountain, it is helping another fat ass climb the mountain.  You will see more bum fights in times of great stress or trial.  You can also be drawn  into a bum fight pretty quickly by the family and friends you love the most - be careful of that.  I have included here the Prayer of Saint Francis, who aside from being the patron saint for animals is also the patron saint of bum fights.  Prayer is good for pre and post bum fighting.  The only thing worse than bum fighting is not recognizing when you have been in one.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

 

Love Dad

 

Life Lesson - SP and Change

Stockdale Paradox - Life Lesson

I sent this out in January of last year but it bears repeating.  For most people, when they find themselves in tough or crappy situations they almost always know what needs to be done.  When you find yourself in this situation you have to make a difficult choice to act or to not act.  You should not confuse doing the very same thing as taking an action, nothing is further from the truth.  If you do the same thing (that is NOT working), it is inaction and you should not be surprised when your situation gets worse. 

Here is a tough truth, you will either opt to act to change your situation and attempt to manage the outcome or you will let the situation run over you and things will change as a result of that.  Another hard truth is that people who have what you want are doing things differently than you are.  And if you are pointing to the person who does not have the same challenges that you do, you are conveniently ignoring the other 95% of people who have the same set of challenges that you do.

Being tough and having courage...having grit is NOT doing the same thing the same way.  It is making hard, tough changes when they are needed.  So if you are lamenting being without something, do something tangible and different.  Here is Stockdale Paradox posting from January:

Admiral James Stockdale was the highest ranking POW in the Vietnam War, he was held for 8 years and tortured brutally over 20 times.  When he was asked which kind of prisoners perished in Vietnam, he said that is easy, it was the optimists.  These were the prisoners who said they would be out by Christmas or Thanksgiving and those days would come and go and eventually enough milestones passed that they lost that essential faith needed to survive and die.  The optimists failed to confront the the reality of their situation and when they were forced to do so it simply became too much for them.

Stockdale accepted the reality of the situation.  He knew he was in hell but rather than failing to confront the reality of the situation he accepted it.  He stepped up and did everything he could do to lift the morale and prolong the lives of fellow prisoners.  He developed communication and milestones that help them communicate and survive.    Here is the Stockdale Paradox:

You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties.
AND at the same time…
You must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Here is the take away for you.  YOU MUST COMBINE OPTIMISM (SINCERE BELIEF) WITH BRUTAL HONESTY AND A STRONG WILLINGNESS TO TAKE ACTION.

James Stockdale quote "I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

Very important life lesson here.  Face any trial you have head on and make them defining moments in your life.  Bloody but unbowed.

Kick Ass - Love Dad

Karma II

I am a believer in Karma.  Your actions and words will always carry the weight of consequence for you.

I am also a firm believer that there are things and people I cannot make better by extending myself to them.  In order for me to reach out to you, you have got to be able to reach back in a meaningful way.  Reaching out to someone implies that you are attempting to connect with them.  Connecting to people is as simple as a smile or word that leaves a door open for that person to try and get to know you.

There is a subset of people you will reach out to that are huge mistakes.  When you peel back the onion, you will occasionally not find the beautiful human you expected, you will find a person with significant personal  deficits that should never be part of your life.  It seems like almost simultaneously when you are finding how much they do not belong in your life -  they will find a pressing need to become part of your life.  

There are connections that should be broken, doors that should be closed, and times when you need to have people get out of your life, who are starting to suck the life out of you.  From a Karma standpoint you only owe these people the honesty of clearly stepping away from them.  

Most people know when you are clearly stepping away from them.  For them not to acknowledge that you are stepping away is a form of manipulation they use to keep in contact with you.   Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is to be firm and honest. 

There are people in my life who I thought would be good or casual friends that were train wrecks.  They had to go through their own journey to find their own self worth.  These journeys frequently involved a series of destructive behaviors that involved bad relationships, drug and alcohol abuse and bad personal decisions.  I would have not helped them or me to have been a witness to that journey. 

So use your good deeds at a time, a place, and  a person where they will find some purchase.  Never dump your good deeds into the black hole of someone else's destructive behavior.

Convention

When I was younger than you are now, I decided I was going to be a Professional Rodeo Cowboy.  It is funny now to remember the look my parents had.  I remember my mom writing something on the calendar that day and I don't think she wrote "best day ever" on the calendar.

This was before there was a Facebook, Skype, or Reddit.  Hell, this was before email.  In the absence of any real social media you could ride off into the sunset.  Conversely you could ride into a new town and reinvent yourself.  There are a couple of reasons that this worked so well back in the day.  No one was really aware of how much and how often you actually fell on your face. 

We were born in a time where the goal out of high school was stability.  A good job, a nice car, and the ability to get some of the nicer things.  You felt like people were PROUD of you when you had that good job, apartment, and car. When you decided to depart from that you had to have a sincere belief in yourself.  Because if you step out of what you think is conventional, you are going to be the target of some tongue wagging and finger pointing.  People who followed convention, also want you to follow convention.  


When I left to be a Professional Rodeo Cowboy it was something I was proud of and believed in.  And while it sounds glamorous in print and paper, it was about working a lot of day jobs to make entry fee's. A lot of traveling to paths of the beaten trail and living (this is a huge understatement) modestly.  While I was doing this a lot of my peers were getting jobs and earning a decent living.  And while my parents firmly believed what I did was akin to running away to join the circus, it was an amazing experience and journey that I would not have traded for the world.

I did not make my living as a Professional Rodeo Cowboy.  I did learn more than my peers who opted for the more conventional definition of success.  I learned how to believe in and trust myself and that has served me really well all these years.  If given the choice of having money or a great passion, I would always pick the passion.  Even at the tender age of 52, I am really happy to know that I do not ever have to wonder if I could have made it as a Professional Rodeo Cowboy.  The pursuit of a passion is never going to be a losing proposition.  Because you find out one of the most essential things you can do in life is to be proud of yourself first before worrying if people are proud of you.

So if you start to worrying about where you are in the pecking order of your peers...don't.  Always have the stones to look your peers in the eye and tell them exactly what you are doing.  Especially if it is not the conventional path.  You owe that to them and mostly to yourself.

Give them all hell
Love Dad

Remission

Remission

I was told last Wednesday that Chris is officially in remission.  His cancer is not gone, but it is smaller and stable.  Chemo/Radiation started in August, it seems like a lifetime ago.   Here are my cancer notes for you.  He reminds me of some of the important stuff.

Measured Grace - Every time someone offered him the best seat, offered to drive him to chemo, shovel a walk, or some other everyday task, he accepted the offers of help with a lot of appreciation and grace.   He came to understand that by gratefully accepting these gestures, it allowed people to do something when there was really nothing to be done.  The truth is that most of these gestures, while made with the greatest of intentions were difficult reminders to him of what he could not do himself.  So the people that were afraid and feeling helpless were able to feel like they contributed in a small way to the most important journey of his life.  Nothing is more gut churning than to feel like a helpless bystander when a life is changing before your eyes.  By putting his ego aside he was able let a lot of people be a small part in the fight for his life.  SO the next time that well meaning person (family/friend/stranger) reaches out to you, consider putting your ego aside and put them ahead of yourself.  By accepting that small bit of help, they will feel infinitely better because they will feel in a small way, that they have been a part of your journey.   Remember, that hard and fast rule -it is not always about just you.

Accepting Incremental Wins - His cancer is smaller and stable not gone - this is considered remission.  So for the next 90 days he is officially stable with no drugs or treatments.  He will have to be checked for the rest of his life (at this point being able to say the rest of his life is outstanding) .  But today he is in remission and every single day should be a celebration of life.  I am not going to wait for the train to run over him again, I am going to take these days for what they are...a gift.  SO DO NOT spend a lot of time lamenting the train that may or may not run over you.  Every day you have is a gift.  Make sure you use every day.  The train that runs people over is often discussed, planned for, and searched for.  The truth is the train runs over a small percent of people and it always because the elect to not step out of its path.
  
Courage - Chris was a constant reminder to me that courage is the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other in the most dire circumstances imaginable.  Most of the amazing acts of courage will never see the light of day and it does not for a minute diminish them.  It is never a single act of courage that defines you.  It is a compilation of courageous acts that will surface when you (or someone else) needs them the most.   Like everything else you learn to be courageous.  SO all of those times you put one foot in front of the other when it you have no reason to COUNT big time.  That is your portfolio of courage, never get concerned that no one see's them.  When you are called on to be courageous in a public way, it will be second nature to you.

Love Dad