Sarcasm

I like to have fun and laugh. What would life be like without humor? One of my daily intentions for 2013 is that my humor will be kind. This area challenges me, because I tend to enjoy irony and sarcasm. I have bought into the popular notion that only intelligent people understand sarcasm. So I have enjoyed and employed humor that is both hurtful and arrogant. Wowzers. Do I really want to be that person?

A few days ago, I was about to say something that I knew for sure the people I was with would find hilarious, but I stopped myself before it came out of my mouth, because it was sarcastic. While the other people around me continued with their conversation, I thought for a moment about why I wanted to say it. I discovered that I was hurt and angry about something, and that sarcastic comment was a cover for what I really didn't want to feel. I wonder how many times in life I have done this, used humor so I wouldn't have to look at what was really bothering me.

Now what I was about to say, but didn't, wasn't aimed at anyone present, or any one particular person at all. It was a general statement about an organization, and it's likely the others would have agreed with me and laughed about it. But it just felt mean and unnecessary, and I am happy I didn't say it. I wonder how many times in life I have hurt someone's feelings with my humor, or made someone feel confused or even stupid because they didn't get what I was trying to say. Wowzers. That makes me feel really sad.

Most people who know me say I'm funny, and I do tend to see the absurd and funny things in life. I am also a pretty honest person, so I think what others like is that I will say what everyone else is thinking. But the sarcasm thing has gotta go. It is passive-aggressive. It's dishonest. It's not who I want to be. And it's not intelligent. Not emotionally intelligent at all, to use sarcasm to cover up anger and hurt and other ickiness that should be felt and faced and dealt with.

Maybe as I continue to deal with the sarcasm, and break that habit, I will begin to see more and more truth that I am hiding, or hiding from. That should make me overall a much happier and joyful person, more real, more able to have fun, joke around and be goofy in a healthy way.

And that's no joke.

Susan

Do No Harm

In his acceptance speech at the SAG Awards, Daniel Day-Lewis said that when he portrayed Abraham Lincoln, he thought of the admonition, "First, do no harm." For years this has been part of the ethics for physicians. Is a medical treatment apt to do more harm than good? Would it be better to not do anything?

I have been thinking about how this might apply to other situations in life, in general. I try to make all my interactions with others be positive. I fail at this sometimes, if I am having a bad day or if I am distracted. There are also times when I want to "help" and the help would do more harm than good. Like doing something for the person that he should do himself. Overstepping boundaries. Offering unsolicited advice. It is arrogant on my part to think that I can always make things better for other people. Often I can. Sometimes I can't. Other times, my idea of helping is actually not helping at all, and actually makes matters worse.

I need to be learning when my help truly is helpful, and when it could actually cause harm. It is difficult, and requires some maturity, to understand that sometimes I just need to be neutral and leave something alone. Hands off. Walk away. Detach.

The most obvious example in my life is in my interactions with my sons, who are now adult men. It is no longer appropriate, and in fact, would be harmful, for me to continue to treat them as if they were children or teenagers, given the fact that they are 27 and 32. I have been known to say, "Please tell me what I could do that would be helpful." That way they, and not I, determine what they might need from me.

It is not an easy lesson to learn, this "first, do no harm" thing. But it will make me a better person, in all my relationships and all my interactions, as I practice it.

Susan

Oh Em Gee

Just in case you think that "OMG!" is an expression used by young girls, or a 54-year-old blogger who shall remain nameless, take a look at this missive to Winston Churchill from Admiral John Fisher, circa 1917. It might just make you LOL. Or maybe just : ).

Susan

Acknowledgement

"When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps." John Lennon

I had a conversation recently with a colleague at work. I am usually leaving for the day around the time she is coming in, so we work together maybe a total of three or four hours a week. She thanked me for the positive feedback that I give her and for the way in which I make her feel acknowledged. I was glad to hear that, because although I am sure I overlook many things, I try to do that on a regular basis with everyone. Occasionally I have to deliver negative feedback, and I hope the positive things I say provide a cushion of sorts. She also thanked me for the ways in which I advocate for my coworkers with management.

She then went on to say how the upper management of our store (I am in middle management) fails to recognize her achievements. And she was not wrong in her assessment. Our managers could do a much better job in giving positive feedback to employees. I listened to her without commenting for a few minutes, for it seemed she just needed to talk.

She told me that she would not toot her own horn. She was not the kind of person to draw attention to herself. But she didn't like feeling ignored. Then she told me that she had plenty of achievement in her life, and didn't need our store to tell her how great she was. But she wanted to hear some good things. It sounded to me like she was contradicting herself. Either you need the recognition or you don't. Apparently, she wants it but won't ask for it.

I told my colleague that after I had worked at the store a few months, I was unhappy at one point with the lack of acknowledgement, too, so I decided to ask for what I wanted, rather than wait for them to give it to me. I told her that around our store, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And that I felt to point out an achievement was not being arrogant. She, however, is not inclined to squeak.

One of my intentions for the year 2012 was to ask for what I want and need. Of course, that had to be implemented at work, too. I remember the first time I did this. We had three new managers (we have a total of five) come on board at the store, and the first time one of them said anything positive at all to me, I jumped right on it. This happened to be the man who, after I was later promoted, became my immediate supervisor. He said something just mildly complimentary about something I had done, and I said, "Thank you, (his name), that is so great to get that kind of feedback. You know, I just thrive on recognition and praise." I had a big smile on my face, and he did as well, and he laughed as if he sort of didn't know what to do with that. He didn't know me that well yet. But guess what happened? He began to acknowledge more and more of the good things I was doing. He recognized me and praised me. I would also be very proactive in asking him questions, to make sure I was doing things right. I even pointed out places where I screwed up, things that he might have not even known about. Things I could have hidden, but acknowledgement goes both ways, right? We recognize the good and the bad. Word got around, and I began to receive acknowledgement from the other managers as well. I think we teach people how to treat us, and I began to teach the people I work with how to treat me. I think we can give others the opportunity to do the right thing. We can invite them to do so.

And you know what the coolest thing of all is? I began to see that I really do need to be acknowledged, recognized and praised when I do something good. There was a time my pride would not have allowed me to admit it, but once I started to get it on a pretty regular basis, I was thinking, "Yes! I need this. I love this. This motivates me." I do thrive on it.

So I try to be the person who acknowledges others, who really sees them and what they do and who they are. And I'm not going to get sad or mad when I'm not acknowledged. I'm going to continue to ask for what I want and need. Because it works. And I think maybe I need to set my alarm early one morning soon, so I can see that sun rise.

Susan

Fly

The last time my granddaughters came to my home for a sleepover, we visited the beach that is a mile or so away. They had not packed swimsuits, and the water was pretty cold anyway. So we were playing in the sand, and my younger granddaughter was walking at the edge of the water. Then she fell down into the water, fully clothed. They both looked at me, taking a cue from what my reaction might be. I laughed and helped her up, and the three of us were pretty hysterical for quite some time. I thought it was so funny, and my feelings about it gave them permission to just enjoy it.

She was never in any danger. I am a helicopter grandma and watch them very carefully. I said, "Oh wow! You fell right into the ocean, fully clothed." For some reason the "fully clothed" part of it struck us as quite humorous, and we kept repeating that phrase over and over.

Right next to the beach is a beautiful playground with things to climb on and slides and swings. There is lots of grass there, and when she said she was all sandy, I encouraged her to roll around in the grass to get the sand off. It worked! Of course, her sister and I, both dry, also rolled around in the grass, too. It was just silly fun. It was the kind of day when it just felt good to be alive, to be together. The sun was very warm that day, so she dried out in no time.

Tonight I was thinking about that day, and I wrote this poem.

We walked along the beach that day
I love to see the children play
They laughed and shouted just like I
Used to do in days gone by

At the park there is a slide
And monkey bars, places to hide
I got in a swing, my feet up high
I felt that I might touch the sky

They like to see their grandma swing
I closed my eyes. If I had wings
I'd fly away, so far I'd fly
With those two girls. We'd wave goodbye

Nothing sad could touch us there
Like birds we'd soar right through the air
That swing can take me any place
The sun, the wind, upon my face

Susan

Related

"Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yesterday at work one of the people I supervise was finished with her shift, and told me goodbye. I thanked her for all her hard work and said, "I always enjoy working with you. You make my job so much easier." She smiled and said, "Right back at you." It was a lovely thing for her to say, wasn't it? We depend on each other, in the workplace and in the home and in our nation and in the world. We are all interrelated. We are all interdependent.

Tomorrow in America we recognize the birthday of the great Martin Luther King, Jr. How wonderful that we are finally having some sort of meaningful dialogue on guns here in our country, as I think about this man who advocated a non-violent approach. The world suffered a great loss when he was killed.

I was a child when President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. died, so I absorbed those losses as a child. I remember thinking of how their children lost their daddies, and how terrible that would be, to have someone shoot and kill your father. Those children are all grown-ups today, just like me, people who have had to live most of their lives without a dad. These men also left wives. Brave women named Jacqueline and Ethel and Coretta, who felt the pain of losing the man they loved. I am not naive. I know that it is an acknowledged fact that all three of these very great men were unfaithful to their wives. I don't know what went on in their marriages, but I know that it would be painful to have your young husband snuffed out in the prime of his life. Your husband. Your partner. The father of your children. No matter how troubled or imperfect the marriage might be, it would be such a difficult loss.

King and his wife were introduced by a mutual friend. To start off, they spoke at length on the telephone, and before they ever even met in person, King said to Coretta Scott, "You know every Napoleon has his Waterloo. I'm like Napoleon. I'm at Waterloo. And I'm on my knees." Wowzers! I love words, and I will admit that I love men who know how to use them. It would be hard not to love a man who would tell you something like that.

Flawed and imperfect like we all are, it seems to me that King tried to make this world a better place. He is gone, but we are here. All of us, in this time and place, all of us in this together. We need each other, desperately. It makes me want to be a better person, not just for myself, but knowing that you need me, too.

"Waterloo" written by Benny Anderson, Bjorn Alvaeus and Stig Anderson

Susan

Stars and Cars

So tonight will you wear the pyjamas with cars?
Or do you prefer the pyjamas with stars?
Stars and cars!
                                  - Sandra Boynton, Night-Night, Little Pookie

When I was a younger woman, we were given the message from popular culture that we could have it all. We could have a successful career, a fulfilling marriage, raise happy, healthy children, work out at the gym, volunteer in the community, have wonderful hobbies. On and on the list went. Then when that didn't work out so well, we got another message. We can't have it all. It might be more accurate to say that we can have it all, but it needs to happen at different times. We must have our priorities, and sometimes that means choosing one or the other.

However, I think we limit ourselves unnecessarily when we make life an either/or proposition. We tell ourselves stories like, I can work or go back to school. I can travel, or stay close to my family. I can devote myself to my marriage, or work on myself. I can keep to a budget, or I can eat healthier.

It's all about finding balance, I suppose. Getting the best from both worlds. It also requires a little creativity, and a willingness to be a little different. As with so many things, a little child shows us the way when we read of Little Pookie. When given the choice between his jammies with cars and his jammies with stars, he put on the top of one pair and the bottom of the other. Stars and cars.

It's my mantra today, as I challenge myself to think of the areas in my life where I am holding myself back by thinking I must choose between stars or cars. Why not stars and cars?

Susan

Minimization

I wrote about being ill a few weeks ago. I said I had a cold, which is what I thought it was. But it was the flu, the same thing so many people throughout the country have had. I am happy to report that I am doing great and my energy level is back to normal.

My dear roommate/friend and I both had it, and when I said it was a cold, she said, "No. It's the flu. I will not allow you to minimize this horrible illness." She was right. And I will confess that I am a minimizer. It's one of my defense mechanisms and one I have been practicing for many years. I would guess it started when I was a child, when I began to tell myself things about my life.

It's okay. It's not that bad. It's not such a big deal. Other people have it just as bad, or worse. These are the stories we tell ourselves about reality, to make it less horrible and easier to get through. I suppose it had its place, because sometimes the horror of reality is more than we can bear. But I don't need to be minimizing anymore now; do I? So I am working on being more realistic about what is going on.

It was the flu. It was terrible. It was nasty. I was so sick. I had some sort of symptoms for ten days. I got lots of rest and lots of sleep. I drank lots of water. We made lots of soup that we called Medicine Soup from the Soup Doctor. We drank lots of juice. We took a really great homeopathic remedy I would highly recommend, called Oscillococcinum made by a company called Boiron. I know it was effective, because I would feel okay, then once it began to wear off, I would feel terrible again. Yes. I was very ill. It was not "just a cold." I had the flu. The worst flu to hit our nation in ten years. The worst.

So no more minimizing for this girl. I am going to tell it like it is. May I ask you to help me? If you read this blog and feel that I am being a minimizer, please call me out on it. Leave a comment or send me an email and point it out. I will be sure to thank you.

Even though we are healthy, today I made this homemade concoction that is supposed to be "Nature's Flu Shot," and we will be drinking it as sort of a booster.

Juice of 6 lemons
One garlic bulb (not just a clove; don't minimize the garlic) minced
3 cups pineapple juice
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

It tastes good, like a spicy pineapple juice. Stay healthy.

Susan

Rumination

"Decisiveness is a characteristic of high performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all." Brian Tracy

Rumination leads to ruination. I want very badly to go back and delete that first sentence, but I won't. I am just going to leave it there, and I don't even know why. I actually dislike little cutesy phrases like that. I am kind of embarrassed that it even came out of my fingertips and on to the keyboard. But in an effort to be more and more real on my blog, I share with you, my reader, more and more of my weirdness. With only minor editing.

Earlier this month, Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema passed way. Her name sounded vaguely familiar (and not because we share the same first name.) Then I read her obituary and the light bulb went on. She wrote about the relationship between rumination and depression in women, back in the 1980's when therapy was switching from talk to cognitive. She said that women tend to overthink their problems, tend to ruminate, more than men do, resulting in depression. It makes sense, doesn't it? Keep thinking about the same problem over and over, and we're going to feel bad and sad.

While I am always skeptical of generalities about gender, she absolutely did her homework, so she probably has a good point. She said that men tend to respond to a problem with action. Trying to fix it, or getting angry about it, or getting together with the guys to play basketball.

And women ruminate. The old timers would call it "chewing the cud." Thinking about a problem and its possible origin is the first step. But to be happy and healthy, we must move on to the second step, which would be to change our thinking and find solutions. Take some action. It's when we dwell in Step One that we become ruminators.

I am not prone to rumination, although I have done it from time to time. I am a fairly action-oriented person, and I am more likely to slam into the wall trying to fix a problem than think about it over and over. You can sometimes find me in my neighborhood, walking fast or slowly jogging, occasionally breaking into a run, as I try to free the junk that's lodged in my brain. I have been told on more than one occasion that I "think like a man," and in this case, maybe that's true.

Nolen-Hoeksema was only 53 at the time of her death. She had a congenital heart problem. Which is maybe the lesson here, if there is one at all in my rambling post. Life is short. Too short to sit around thinking about our problems. Let's fix them or fix our thoughts and attitudes about them. Let's change what needs to be changed. Sitting on the fence is one of the most uncomfortable places in the world to be. Sometimes we just have to do something. Chewing the cud makes life a dud. (Cringe.)

Susan

Back to School

It's my first day of school. I have online classes again this semester. I am really grateful to have that option, because it means I can work full time and go to school full time and juggle it all pretty well. It is also wonderful to have a good computer in my home to use, which I wrote about here. This morning I got up early, got my coffee and wanted to get a head start on the week.

All my classes were up online, but I became frustrated when some of the items the professors posted we needed to do were a little too difficult to find. I think that some professors are more comfortable with the website than others. In fact, some of the professors I have had for classroom instruction in the past refused to use the website at all. I don't really know why this all bothered me so much, because I know that sooner or later with some patience I'll become comfortable with the way each posts items. It is, after all, the first day of the first week of the semester.

I decided to take a break from it all, and took a shower. While I was in there, I cleaned the shower and tub to make it all sparkly. We have hard water, and there is some hard green stuff (mineral deposits) on the shower head. I remembered reading somewhere to put some white vinegar in a plastic bag, rubber band it to the showerhead and let it soak. So I did that and it worked beautifully. It made me so ridiculously happy.

I am off to school now.

Susan

Broken Things

Later this year, my best friend will be getting married for the second time. I was a bridesmaid at her first wedding 35 years ago, and I will be the reader at her ceremony this time. Instead of a flower bouquet, she will have a crystal bouquet. Apparently, they are all the rage, in case you hadn't heard. She has asked her female friends and family members to each contribute a piece of inexpensive jewelry, white or silver or gold or clear. Then she will attach the jewelry to a wire stem and turn this all into a bouquet. She likes the idea because it's different, it's something she will keep unlike fresh flowers that die, and there is sentimental value attached to the jewelry.

I didn't think I had anything to contribute, because my jewelry is all pretty colorful. Then I was cleaning out Pink and found a pair of earrings I had forgotten I had. Fake white pearl with silver. Yay! I can now participate. One of the earrings is broken; that wire thing that goes in my ear is missing. But that is not a problem since she is going to be taking the jewelry apart in some cases anyway. So I lovingly wrapped the earrings up and put them in an envelope and popped it in the mail.

I kind of like that what I sent her was broken. We women seem to put a lot of emphasis on having the perfect wedding day, maybe a precursor to the perfect life to which we feel entitled. Certainly the first time around, my friend had expectations based on a combination of the fairy tales we like to believe and the lack of life experience she had at the age of 20.

It's different this time around. For her. For her future husband, who was also married once before. For me, because back when I was 19 I never would have thought that broken earrings would be a worthy contribution. Yet life and love and we humans ourselves are made of missing pieces and broken things.

At her first wedding, I was inexperienced with alcohol and had too much to drink at the reception. I don't remember, but I have been told I was very entertaining. It seems I'm a funny drunk. The last time my friend and I were together (she lives across the country from me) I reassured her I would not do that again. I would drink very little at this reception. She frowned and said in a sad voice, "Oh. How disappointing."

What can I say? I am not about to disappoint my best friend. So I will memorize and rehearse my readings, so I can deliver them without reading any notes. I will find a beautiful dress and shoes, and carefully do my hair, makeup and nails. I will do my friend proud. Then at the reception, I think I might have a little too much to drink. Not way too much like that first time, but maybe a little too much. The Second Coming of the Drunken Bridesmaid with the Broken Earring.

I doubt anyone remembers how well put together I was at her first wedding. How precisely I walked down the aisle at the church on the arm of a groomsman. But people still remember me as the drunken bridesmaid, and they smile. For a while I was mortified, then I was embarrassed, but now I'm good with it.

Missing pieces. Broken things. Second chances. Drunken bridesmaids. It's all good.

Susan

Every Thing

Recently I wrote about "all or nothing" here. I've been thinking about the difference between all and everything. The emphasis of my job at the store is to give the customers the best possible experience. I want to exceed their expectations. Part of how I do that is to work with the cashiers so that they can adhere to company policies and standards, but interpret them with their own unique personalities.

I am a happy person. I love people. I register pretty high on the perky scale. That is me. If a more reserved person imitated me, it would come across to the customer as phony. It would also not be sustainable, since trying to pretend we are someone we are not requires a ridiculous amount of effort. So as I train and coach, I encourage people to do it their way. I think it also makes a happier employee, because they feel like our store is a place where they are celebrated and appreciated.

In doing this, I have come to recognize the little quirks in the personalities of my coworkers. It is fascinating, really, because we are all so different in so many ways. The most interesting people are those who bring everything -- every little thing -- to our interactions. It's funny how we sometimes edit ourselves, how we hold back, how we parcel a little out here and there, how we try to hide what we think are our flaws, when it is the little quirks that really make us charming. It is exhausting to do that. How much easier to just give everything. Every little thing.

It has caused me to grow as a person, this bringing every little thing to my interactions. Not just the workplace, but in my everyday life as well. We expect every cashier to ask every customer every time, to open a store credit card. I can't ask them to do that if I'm not doing it. So the other day there was a kind of stuffy older lady, holding her tiny little dog in one arm, and putting her items on the counter. I exclaimed over the dog, as I always do, because I love animals. She was some sort of terrier with a pink color and leash. (The dog, not the woman.) She was a little snooty. (The woman, not the dog.) I asked her if she had heard about our credit card where she could earn rewards, and she sniffed, put her nose in the air and said, "I only use American Express." I said, "Well, then how about your dog? I bet she would love to have her own credit card." The woman burst out in the most undignified laughter, and after that you would have thought that she and I were best friends. She pushed her cart and her dog out of our store, one happy customer.

The cashier next to me also laughed, and she happens to be one of my coworkers who hates talking to customers about the credit card. I had to have a conversation with her a few weeks ago reminding her that she needed to be doing it. After the customer left, my colleague said, "Oh my god! That was hilarious!" I responded that yeah, why not make it be fun and leave the customer happy.

Now I am no comedian, but I think you and I both know I wanted to have a little fun at the lady's expense, but do it in a kind way. Because that is who I am. I am fun and I am kind. And I bring everything. Or I am learning to do that, and getting better at it all the time. I am not perfect, and there is plenty about me that could be changed or improved. Working on that, too. But I think life deserves my everything. Every thing. Every little thing. And I think when I do that, it gives others permission to bring everything, too.

"Give Me Everything" written by Pitbull

Susan

Old

It was a wonderful box of Christmas magic, these gifts that had traveled across the country from my niece and her family to me. One of the presents was a teddy bear with a tee shirt on that says, "You are amazing." My ten-year-old grandniece chose it for me, and her mom said, "It never occurred to her that you might be too old for a teddy bear." We were chatting on Facebook, and I typed, "I am not too old for a teddy bear." I must have hit the button twice, because that sentence came out twice. I don't think I meant to do that. Or did I? My niece said I did, because it's a mantra. I am not too old...I am not too old...

When we want to argue for our limitations, being too old is a very convenient excuse. And surprisingly, other people, especially younger ones, won't even bother to call us out on it. If we say we are too old, the universe agrees with us. Part of the reason I am here on this planet, I believe, is to experience as much as I possibly can. Experience. Embrace. Enjoy. The other reason is to become self-actualized, to be everything I possibly can be. That will involve breaking old, destructive habits and changing for the better.

My age of 54 is the best age ever. I am more adventurous and less self-conscious than I was when I was younger. I also have experienced failure (two significant ones, the failure of my marriage and the failure of a business I owned) to know that failing doesn't mean I am a failure. That failure won't kill me. That sometimes the most surprising, wondrous gifts life can bring come out of disappointing failures. Really, I have absolutely no excuse not to live life fully and be all that I can be.

What about you? What are you too old for?

Susan

Protect

It was not long after I started my shift at the store yesterday, when the phone rang and the caller asked to speak with our manager. Before I could connect him, he began to speak to me in that charmy smarmy way that some older (his voice sounded elderly) men do with women. I tried to keep the chat brief and professional, because I was simultaneously doing all the things I have do while speaking with him. He asked me if I liked the President (he called him something other than that) and I answered honestly, "Yes. I do." At that point, he became very nasty, proceeded to tell me I was rude, he would have me fired, he was a shareholder, and then he used the "f" word and called me some very unkind names and use some more profanity. At that point, I stopped speaking and he asked if I heard him, was I still there, etc. I allowed him to hear some of my complete silence, then I put him on "hold" where he would hear our music and asked the manager to take the call. My hands were trembling and my stomach felt sick. He was brutal. It takes a lot to shake me up, but that really did. As soon as she was finished with the call, my manager came up to see if I was okay. I really wasn't. Not at all.

As I processed it throughout the day, one of the thoughts I had was that I was glad I was the one to take the call, and not someone on my team. I wouldn't want them to be talked to that way. In fact, I always have my ears and eyes open even at the busiest times, and if I think a customer is mistreating one of my colleagues, I take a walk over to see if I can help. Usually just my presence calms things down. Or causes the customer to back down. It is not part of my job description, although they all know to call on me if they need help. Am I being a martyr? And do other adults need my protection? Do I feel unprotected and protect others as a way to compensate for this?

I am no super hero. I'm not even a hero. I have no cape. Although at work, I do wear an apron which could easily be converted into a cape. I can't save the world. Sometimes I struggle just to save myself. I don't want to be a martyr. They usually have very short lives.

Susan

Light

She has a name. Jyoti (JOO-thee) Singh Pandey. She was the young woman fatally raped on a bus in India recently. Her father asked Britain's Sunday People to publicize her name. Up to this point, she was anonymous. Or Anonymous, a representative of all the women who have been raped in India. Perhaps in the world.

Greater minds than I speak of the cultural problems in India that foster an environment where women are sexually harrassed and even raped. As with all problems in the world, it is our collective problem.

Her father wants the world to know her name. It is a beautiful name, isn't it? Jyoti. It means "light." As you can easily see, I am not very articulate in this post. I just hurt. For her, for her father, for all of us, male and female, who live in a world where such a light can be so cruelly snuffed out.

Susan

Glorious

In my last post, Kind, I talked about bad boys, nice guys and kind men. Reader Kevan commented, "Nice guys are often very kind, but kindness that doesn't rise from personal power is thin gruel." His comment inspired me to write this post. I thank him for it.

One of my favorite breakfasts is oatmeal. Sometimes called porridge or gruel. I don't buy the instant kind. Or even the oats called quick. Old-fashioned oats make the best oatmeal, or at least according to me. I don't use a lot of water, and cook for a short time, because I like my oatmeal kind of thick and substantive. No thin gruel for me. I add a tiny bit of real maple syrup or maybe some brown sugar, for a little sweetness. Cinnamon and sometimes nutmeg or cloves or ginger to make it spicy. Fruit and nuts is another good addition. So good. Sooooooo goooood.

Oatmeal is a delicious breakfast that stays with me for a long time in the morning, which is what I want. Oatmeal is a nutritious breakfast with a surprising amount of protein, which I absolutely need because I don't eat meat. Some women shy away from oatmeal because they think it's fattening. It's not; in fact, oatmeal can actually help us lose weight since that bowl of gruel packs a lot of nutrition and we are not hungry again for a long time. It just tastes so decadent that some girls think it will make them fat.

So, to me, a kind man is like a bowl of oatmeal. He gives a woman what she wants. He gives a woman what she needs. Old-fashioned to begin with. With substance. A little sweet. A lot spicy. Sometimes filled with fruity fun. Not to mention the nuts. Decadent.

"Food, Glorious Food" written by Lionel Bart

Susan

Kind

"At night, too, she puzzled the mystery of her desperate need of kindness. As other girls prayed for handsomeness in a lover, or for wealth or for power, or for poetry, she had prayed fervently: let him be kind." Anais Nin, A Spy in the House of Love

She shook her head from side to side. "No more bad boys for me," she said. "I want a nice guy." Knowing a bit of her history, I certainly agreed she didn't need any more bad boys. But a nice guy? I don't know. I thought about the stereotypes we seem to have in American culture, with all men seemingly being lumped into one of two camps. Bad boys vs nice guys; that endless debate.

It is said that nice guys finish last. I think we have come to view nice guys as boring and wishy washy. Men who don't know what they want, or who are too timid to say. Men who are a little too eager to please, a little too concerned about offending.

It has to be tough sometimes to be a man in today's world, where it's not as simple as it was for guys of my dad's generation. Not that those men had easy lives, but what society demanded of them and what women expected of them was certainly more defined.

How about a third option? A kind man. I crave kindness in all my relationships. Kindness is a powerful motivator for me. Be kind to me and I will go to the ends of the earth for you. Be kind to me, and I will give you my trust because you deserve it, because you would never set out to harm me. Be kind to me, and I will respect your strength, because kind people are some of the strongest people.

Anyone can be nice. Even abusive people are nice sometimes, or they would have an acute shortage of victims. Part of the very cunning cycle of abuse is first the abuse, whether physical, emotional or verbal, happens. Then the abuser is nice. Usually just nice enough to keep you from walking out the door. Until the abuse happens again, and on and on it goes in painful circles.

No one has to be mean to be direct, to stand up for himself, to ask for what he wants or needs, to disagree, to draw and enforce boundaries. All of these can and should be done with kindness. Sometimes nice just feels patronizing or even manipulative. But kindness? It feels different, or at least it does to me. As Nin so eloquently put it, I have a desperate need of kindness.

A bad boy. A nice guy. A kind man. I choose Door Number Three.

Susan

Ready or Not

"Everything that belongs to us comes to us if we create the capacity to receive it." Rabindranath Tagore

As a younger woman, I was very impatient. With myself, much of the time. With other people, some of the time. With events not happening fast enough, all of the time. I didn't enjoy the process. I just wanted to see the results. Now over time, I have developed patience, and some people who have known me for a long time have mentioned it as well. But I still struggle with it occasionally.

"I'm ready!" I would shout. "Bring it on! Let it come!" Now I believe that sometimes the reason we don't have something is because we haven't gone out and seized it.  But as I have gotten older, I have come to wonder if one of the reasons why we don't get what we want, when we want it, is because we're not ready to receive it yet.

This Christmas, I gave my three-year-old grandson a puzzle called Alphabet Train. Letters of the alphabet and the most adorable animals. It is a good one for him, because it's age appropriate. It challenges him in a fun way. It doesn't frustrate him. He is ready for it. His older sisters have puzzles, and in fact his 8-year-old sister is a whiz at jigsaw puzzles. He isn't ready for one of her puzzles yet.

Maybe those of us who think of ourselves as "late bloomers" should consider this; that life is preparing us for whatever comes next. So that we will be ripe and ready for it, so we can enjoy it fully. So we will know what to do with it. Perhaps that takes some of the frustration out of waiting, and takes it from being something we do passively to a more active role. Can I relax and trust the process? Will I open myself up and make space for what belongs to me? It might be less frustrating and a better use of my energy to submit to and cooperate with the preparation process, whatever that happens to be.

Just because I don't have it right now doesn't mean it's not mine. Maybe I'm just not ready. Yet.

Susan

Real

"To find your true self, you must surrender to it, and the best way to do that is to surrender to another person." Deepak Chopra

Lately she has been talking a lot about finding a purpose in her life, although she is accomplished in several areas. She is one of the best people I know, and I feel very blessed to call her my friend. She asked me what my purpose was. I think it is to become more and more of who I am. I am here not so much to do, as to be. And as I become more and more of who I am, I will quite naturally affect others in a positive way. I think we often don't know our influence, or perhaps with false modesty, we underestimate it. We might focus on the big sacrifice that we make for a loved one, when it could be that the things that make even a bigger difference are seemingly inconsequential to us. A word, a silence, a smile, a nod, a touch. The attitudes that we carry around; the energy we bring into a room.

We are all here together, on this planet. It is a wonderful time to be alive, because through the amazing technology of 2013, we can be connected in some unprecedented, creative ways. In one of my Communications classes, our professor said that a fully actualized person is one who is capable of being interdependent. Not independent. We don't go through the process of self-discovery, of becoming more and more of who we are, so that we can be self-sufficient, needing no one. Not at all. We become real and then have the ability to depend on others, just as truly as they depend on us. It's not about perfection. It's about becoming real.

It got me thinking about the classic children's book "The Velveteen Rabbit (Or How Animals Become Real)" by Margery Williams. And that led me to the delightful photography of Mark Nixon. I hope you will have a few minutes to look at some of the wonderful stuffed toys and read their stories.

Susan

Friend

She was thinking about the next place the two of them could go on Date Night, as we talked about a luxury movie theatre in the area. Neither of us had been, but we had heard they serve meals there and cocktails and the seats are big, cushy recliners. I remarked how great it was, that after being married all those years, they still went on dates. It was New Year's Eve, and she told me that she and her husband met on New Year's Eve in 1966. She was 16 and went with a bunch of girlfriends to a dance at his college. He was 18. Forty-six years later, seven children and thirteen grandchildren later, here they are. Still loving each other. Still liking each other. She said, "He's my best friend."

Is there any greater compliment? It is easy to stay married; just don't get divorced. And I think that for some, no matter how unhappy they may be in a marriage, they will both admit they still love each other. But to be best friends, well now. That has to be the most wonderful thing of all.

Isn't it odd how we dismiss and minimize a member of the opposite sex by saying "We're just friends." Just. As if a friend is less than a partner or a lover. Sometimes we say we want to be more than friends, meaning we want romance and sex and a possible lifetime commitment. Don't get me wrong. These are all great things. But we tend to minimize the friendship aspect, when it is the real strength and core of any long term relationship. We have probably all known people who took a friendship to the "next level," only to later break up and never be friends again. Sad.

So she might be going to that luxury cinema, even though it's a little pricey. She might just decide to splurge. With her husband. With her kids' father. With her grandchildren's Papa. With her best friend. Who just all happen to be the same man. What a love story.

"Just a Friend" written by Biz Markie and Freddy Scott

Susan

Voice

I know my cold is getting better, because now I am hoarse. Barely able to speak above a whisper. It almost always happens when I get a cold, that toward the end of the illness, I lose my voice. Isn't it funny how I refer to it as losing my voice?

The other day a friend used a phrase in an email, and I knew immediately it came from Alexander Pope. I knew that, because I know how he sounds. Although obviously I have never heard Pope's voice. It just sounded like him.

At work I make intercom announcements, and I try to be pleasant. I don't want the sound that hits people's ears to be annoying or shrill. A customer remarked that I should do voice overs. I am often told that I have a nice voice. When I call someone on the phone, I always identify myself. A pet peeve of mine is when someone calls me and if there is no caller ID, he doesn't identify himself and I am supposed to guess who it is. So I try not to be that person. A big part of my day at work is communicating with my managers on their portable phones. I always start off by saying, "Hi. It's Susan." One of them commented the other day that I always do that, but I never need to. "No one sounds like you," she said.

No one sounds like me. And no one sounds like you, either. Each of us is unique, with his own special voice. One of my old default positions in life was to just shut up when I felt I was not being heard. I was very good at being quiet, of not having a voice.

One of my intentions for the new year is to use my voice more. Last year I began asking for what I needed or wanted, with great results. This New Year's Day, when I have lost my voice, my intention is to make my voice heard. In a positive way. For good.

What about you? I hope you have not lost your voice, because we need to hear what you have to say.

Happy 2013.

Susan