Goodbyes and Hellos

It's easy to start, harder to stop. Most people begin forming habits without thinking about it. What's a habit but a groove worn into your mind and body, conscious and unconscious? (Merriam-Webster says : a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance b : an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary, as in 'I got up early from force of habit'). I'm looking at habits while I think about resolutions.

A friend of mine told me yesterday that good lists of resolutions include decisions not to do certain things. Which reminded me of Johnny Cash's hand-written To-Do List recently purchased for $6,400 at a charity auction.

 

Now there's a list that includes things you can stop doing! I am going to include a few things I will say goodbye to as well.

Goals guide habits most fundamentally by providing the initial outcome-oriented impetus for response repetition. In this sense, habits often are a vestige of past goal pursuit. Habits become part of the problem when they are only vestiges of not-so-good goals, like "I think I'll be lazy today, sleep in and not exercise. Hmmm, that sleeping in felt good yesterday, and today is Saturday, why don't I just take weekends off?"

Habit has allowed you to tie your shoes without thinking, If you seem to forget after wearing slip-ons for half your life, you can recapture the ability to tie your shoe, by setting the goal of mindfully tying your shoes. Tying the shoe is a goal-directed behavior now, and no longer relies on the habit mechanism.

This implies to me that goals ought to be routinely adjusted to ensure the brain does not rely on habits for control of day-to-day activity.

So, with this motivation in mind, I will focus on developing a goal-directed approach, using higher goals and sub goals, and developing a higher level of mindfulness needed to act mindfully in pursuit of these goals. So today, I'm choosing Twenty-Eleven habits to which I will say goodbye.

TWENTY ELEVEN GOODBYES

• Sitting in the same chair,
  
• Walking to work the same way.
  
• Eating meals quickly.
  
• Eating left-handed.
  
• Overeating
  
• Evening sweet or salty snacks.
  

 

And some new activities for the coming year.

 

TWENTY TWELVE HELLOS

• Practice of meditation daily,
  
• Tracking mindful actions each day on calendar dedicated to that use.
  
• Mindfully performing daily exercises.
  
• Regularly learning new exercises.
  
• Initiating conversations.
  
• Smiling
  
• Kissing my wife (thank you Johnny Cash)
  

 

You can see it's a work in progress, but so am I.

 

Internet shopping vs. brick and mortar shopping

Count me among those who believe Internet shopping will never eclipse brick and mortar shopping. Oh, I don't think internet shopping has reached its peak, but there will always be brick and mortar store shopping. Here's my top ten list of the reasons--

No. 10. Whenever my wife wants girl time with our female house guest(s), shopping is the perfect means to ditch the husbands.

No. 9. No one ever had to stop for lunch while out internet shopping with said female house guest(s).

No. 8. Provided you are not foolish enough to offer it to a sales clerk when asked, you will not receive a lifetime sentence--er, subscription--to the store's email newsletter when you shop in person.

No. 7. The thrill of buying something that "must have been mismarked--it rang up even cheaper than I thought." You won't find that on the internet.

No. 6. The experience of instant gratification far outdistances the excitement of getting a package at your door.

No. 5. Sales clerks generally don't repeatedly fail to complete a transaction because the 16-digit code is incorrect, the security code has not been entered, an invalid email address has been entered, you/they have timed out, you have forgotten your user id,

No. 4. Your memory or typing skills don't produce any of the following barriers to just buying the darn thing: you have forgotten your password, your password has expired, your password is case-sensitive, your password does not contain a !@#$%^&*()+ etc.(although your vocabulary might).

No. 3. You can't read tabloids waiting in line at your computer.

No. 2. The ultimate compliment—the sales clerk admiring your purchases—cannot happen via the internet

No. 1. Returning items purchased on the internet doesn't require/allow another outing with lunch.
 

I think you get my drift.

Health Is…

We get awfully attached to being healthy. We even expect the earth to stay healthy, with that expectation fueling the environmental movement. "The earth will last forever if we take better care of it," they seem to say. Yet we know the universe is winding down and that our sun will someday burn out and go dark. These cosmic events are so comfortably distant we don't see the immediacy of it. But I have to admit I have always thought of health and death as opposites. Fact is, health and death define each other.

For years I have read much about Buddhism, primarily Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and Vipassana meditation. I have also spent a fair amount of time meditating, though not nearly enough to learn what I need to learn to understand impermanence, but I have worried the edges of my attachments.

Now, I regard myself as a much more healthy-minded person than my parents were, especially in the area of exercise. At my age, my Father had bad knees and usually came home, sat down and read the paper. He rarely moved from that chair. At this time of year, we recall how he spent each New Year's Day glued to the television, watching football. He was rarely physically active. My Mom was much the same, keeping watch on him. She was all about healthy eating, but not exercise. I eat healthier than my father did, and I exercise roughly five hours a week. I note my life expectancy is longer than my father's, but now I have to face the truth that health is merely a slower means of dying. I think the statement has some irony to it. We expect health to be the means to outwit death, but we know in our hearts there really is no escaping it. But still, the older we get the more we pursue good health as hard as we can.

As parents, we have assumed our thirty-something son will become more health conscious when he gets a little older, more mature, wiser, etc. We tell ourselves it's maturity. If he will only get a little more mature, he'll take better care of himself. I wondered why we seem to become more health-conscious as we get older. Not hard to figure, is it? We are watching death approach, so we are getting attentive to our health. Not so we can feel better, or live forever, we just want to slow the rate of dying. The Dalai Lama marvels at us humans who make plans and prepare for everything, but get squeamish about being always prepared for death. It's not attributed to him, but I am sure he'd agree, "Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which you can die." So, health is a rate at which death happens. There is no denying it, but how will you live your life differently once you really wrap your mind around it? It means more than trying to be healthier, doesn't it?

When Santa Is Generous With Airplane Time

On my 103rd flight this year, I got some extras. First, we got an extra stop. After circling Atlanta for an hour, we were running low on fuel. This gave us the opportunity to visit Nashville. Amazingly enough, Nashville looks exactly like any other city from inside the plane. Our pilot optimistically predicted we'd be back in the air in no time, which in pilot-speak is something a tad longer. We spent a very pleasant hour there, during which time we lost only one passenger, who bailed, realizing he would not make his connection and that Nashville is closer to his final destination than Atlanta. Most of us just shook our heads, thinking we would still make our connections and that he was just a pessimist.

This gave way to a pleasant conversation I had with my seatmate, a 17-year old from Milwaukee, on the merits of being fundamentally pessimistic and thus pleasantly surprised most of the time with how life plays out. I told him I barely remember being seventeen, but that I believe I had chosen pessimism at least that early. (I made a hotel reservation in Atlanta, assuming I wouldn't make my connection.)

It's not that we are negative, just that life is not a big disappointment if you don't see things turn out exactly as you wanted them to. Is this compatible with Napoleon Hill? Probably not. But I think the two can coexist. I have a book entitled What Would Napoleon Hill Do? And the topic is covered objectively in my opinion. To me, his whole segment on profiting by failure is an endorsement of a healthy pessimism. Pessimists are just covering their bets and maintaining an attitude that allows them to maintain when things don't turn out optimally. "Oh, I thought that might happen." Is an easier proposition to accept than "I don't believe this is happening!" Pessimists anticipate failure, not defeat. Hill even points out the language of defeat (not failure) must be one we don't understand, or we wouldn't repeat self-defeating behaviors all the time. Failure, on the other hand, offers lessons from which we can learn if we are prepared to do so. Pessimists are just better prepared to learn from failure.

But back to airplane time—after we discharged our pessimistic passenger, we promptly took off for Atlanta as promised by our optimist pilot. Who knew? We headed straight in to ATL, and landed just 35 minutes later. I quickly turned on my phone and tracked down the flight status on my connection. I had more than 20 minutes. With luck, and a gate less than a mile's walk away? I probably won't make it, I thought, but I might. We taxied in. It took us about ten minutes, about average in Atlanta. When we turned into the lane between the concourses, our old pal, the optimist pilot, comes on to tell us our gate is occupied, but he is sure we'll be assigned another soon. A full hour later, we arise from our seats to get off our plane, which has now been our home in the sky—and on the ground—for five and a half hours. At this juncture, I have plenty of time to make my connection—tomorrow. Merry Christmas

G-men’s Beginning

They waited a long time. In a sort of platoon of two dozen, they waited for "the season." How they came together is something from ancient earth, and beyond understanding to many. But they wait to take birth. Slowly it begins, a door opens, a search begins. The list is written down somewhere, of course, but by now it is part of memory that reappears each time the season begins. Each item on the list has been stored, but the supply must be enough. From time to time, the stores are drawn down between seasons, for good uses, but never in service of what the platoon awaits.

Whatever is found to be in short supply must be replenished, and it is obtained in ways that obscure its true source in ancient earth. But it is assembled just the same. There may be more than one stop in the journey to lay in those supplies, but it all must be done. All the while, they quietly watch and wait. It has begun.

What will happen in this process? How will we look? Names are considered. All considered must begin the same way. Some are ancient and traditional, such as Gerald, Geraldine, George, Georgeanna, Gina, Genevieve, Geoffrey, Gerard, Giovanni, Giselle, Giuseppe, and, of course, Ginny. Others come and go, like Geraldo, Genifer and Giancarlo. Still others arise like Gary, Gil, Glenn, Gordon, Goldie, Grace, Gabriella, Greg and Gloria.

The season has arrived with its onset of chills. The birthing team had quietly set the date. On the eve of the formative day, the day when all will take their immediately recognized form, the mixing begins. Their assembly comes in stages. This is where the characteristics they will display take root. There are sensory imprints—texture, body size, even aromas are more often than not determined at this stage.

Finally, the day arrives. They begin.

In this form of existence, they will be aware or conscious beings. As such, their awareness includes aspiration—one, to delight in appearance, decorating the lives of others, or, two, to attain completeness and benefit others by satisfying their desire. In either case, they will last less than an entire season. They know when they take this form what is in store, death of a sort—being consumed or discarded by season's end. They could not achieve their aspiration without doing so. But still this is seen as a favorable form of taking birth.

First they are rolled flat, then cut in a traditional shape. Their form is decorated, with face and features and clothing. There are buttons, large and round with a hard shell coating. Then the firing begins and they take birth, some for the first time in this form, others yet again. Soon eyebrows, hair, eyes and mouth arrive like frosting on a cake,

The secret to a favorable rebirth is one's state of mind at the moment of death. Much time is spent waiting for that moment, being consumed in service to others.

So do they think of this death and worry? By and large, they subscribe to what the sage said, "If there is a way of avoiding death, then there is no need to worry, but if there is not, there is still no need to worry." Oh, the life of a gingerbread man.     

Fiction is Harder than Non

It's been eight days between posts, but I have an excuse. I've been working on a fiction piece, a story I plan to tell a particular group. The trouble is I am unable to simply let go of the audience and just write. The voice I use to write is overtaken by the critic's voice that continually asks what will the audience think of that. or is this a story you can tell them?

Maybe the 2 voices use the same channel and it's like my DVR, if I'm recording on more than one channel, the TV doesn't want to let me view a show without cancelling one of the recordings. While both voices are useful, I need to suspend the critic for intervals. But there are times I know I need both voices at once. for instance, when I listen to the critic's voice I still need the writing voice for the rewrites that take place on the fly to satisfy the critic.

I know, I know, I hear you saying it--he's no longer of sound mind--hearing voices. But still....

What I want to do is write the story, perhaps several stories in one, and then edit it (if I need to do that) for a particular audience. Saying it isn't doing it, though. Each time I sit down to write I go off on a tangent looking for more information, hoping solid sources might discourage the critic. I tell myself--if I just had a simpler explanation for this, or a clearer analogy for that, or an underlying theory that no one would question, I wouldn't hear the constant carping from the critic.

Why doesn't this happen when the subject is non-fiction? When it's non-fiction, the critic is drowned out, or at least subdued. He can disagree with me and I am unperturbed. In fact, when the critic asks a question, arguments spring forth from my head that protect me from the critic's carping, even providing more material for whatever I am writing about. So why doesn't it work for this piece of fiction?

Part of the problem is the premise of this particular story is hard for the critic to accept. But it is fiction, I say, so fantastic or not, it's allowed. I should be free to bend rules/reality however I want. It just makes me want to go back to non-fiction, where we bend reality and pretend we aren't. We call it "opinion."

Lunching Today

I did something today that my wife has been doing for years--I went to lunch with a couple of friends. We ate stuff we aren't supposed t0 (I even had a pint of beer) and we just talked about whatever came up. One friend watches old TV shows all the time. He told me "I never watch anything I haven't seen before," attributing the remark to Groucho Marx (I think he had it confused--Marx famously said in A Night At The Opera "I never forget a face, but in your case, I'll make an exception." Anyway, he was trying to explain his viewing habits and the penchant for buying DVDs of TV series and movies.

I decided he needs to create a blog for all those of us who don't have the time or the inclination to watch TV so much. He could do all the watching, then blog about which ones we ought to see and what to look for. Or he could blog about what he liked, didn't like about it. He could tell us about earlier work that people on shows today did before now.

We even spent a little time telling jokes, and I made a nuisance of myself making bad puns. We all agreed we should do this more often and I looked across the room at a group of old(er) geezers breaking up their lunch like an old habit. Hmmmm, not sure I'm ready. Just like I'm not sure I'm ready for a bicycle helmet. I see too many older guys doing it.

Moving from CD's to mp3s--Withdrawal is Painful, But...

I decided to do it about two months ago. I am unloading all my CD's by moving everything into my iTunes library. The last time I made a transition like this, it was not voluntary, and it really wasn't a transition, exactly--more like a fait accompli.

I had an average-sized record collection for someone who was a college student in 1969 into the early 70's. It was a mix that reflected my changing tastes in those days--there were the Temptations, the Beatles, the Moody Blues, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Rod Stewart, etc. It was "temporarily" being stored in the basement while we were between stereos and had two very young children (two and five)who would have been light sleepers--and that music was supposed to be played loud, you know.

So, my collection had been assigned to the basement. They were LP's, 33 &1/3 RPM's. I had them in a wooden record cabinet-the kind that you would set your stereo on top of. As luck would have it, we had what was termed a 30-year rain (probably more like 100), and our neighborhood had an old shared storm water/sanitary sewer line. So, when all that rain filled up our sewer lines, what backed up onto our basement (about four feet deep) was mostly raw sewage. Draining the swamp took a few days and clean-up consisted in throwing out what was there and bleaching the floors and walls. My record collection was in the usual album covers, made of cardboard, swollen with sewer water and would likely have to have been chiseled out. So, a fait accompli, no more record collection in LP's. By the time I was able to think about buying music again, it was the 90's and music came on cassettes and something new, CD's. I had a brief period where I bought a few cassettes, but even I could see that had no future, so i eventually acquired CD's, not a huge supply, but probably bigger than my LP collection. So far, I have invested about six hours uploading CD's into my library in iTunes. I have been choosing which ones to upload by my tastes, which have evolved. One consistent thing though--my wife doesn't like any of them. Withdrawal is only one of the pains involved, you know.

I Can't Deny It

This is harder than I thought. I wanted to make sense of denial as a life strategy. In high school, I read a biographical novel about Sigmund Freud and became seriously interested in psychology. I once struggled through two of the books he wrote--The Psychopathology of Everyday Life and The Interpretation of Dreams. The bio was much more interesting. I eventually gave up the idea of majoring in Psychology (the only thing a Psych major had to look forward to was ten more years of school). But an understanding of defense mechanisms stayed with me (probably as the simplest means of coping with life as I know it). I've spent a fair amount of time analyzing my life and my perspective on the world. When I was 55, I took the Strengths Finder (a self-assessment bestseller at the time that has been redone a couple of times) and it said one of my primary strengths is that I'm analytical. If a problem calls for analysis, I'm your man.

So, here I am, recognizing denial when I see it. But, my denial is better than Freud's, I am making good things out of it. (<-DENIAL). I have rationalized (Oops, there's another one, RATIONALIZATION) my denial, saying I am really making something better out of it (<-see Freud on SUBLIMATION). Maybe I should just explain it and you will see it for what it is (if I could remember my dreams, I'd offer them up as material for interpretation, Dr. Freud).

I read lots about neurosis and defense mechanisms, and it boils down to the ego defending itself from the id, the unconscious source of all our urges. The anxiety produced by acknowledging all those urges is lessened when we just deny the whole thing or blame it on someone else. But don't worry, as a defense mechanism, denial becomes more difficult to maintain as one matures. Its use requires much energy and the mind looks at other possibilities of defense.

You see, I am facing a physical challenge, disease-wise. It seems it will someday become serious, but for now, I am able to deny it (except for a symptom or two that keep popping up). The great thing about denying any limits it places on me is that I can exercise more than I have since I quit running twenty years ago. You see, virtually everyone I talk to about my challenge tells me that exercise is the best thing I can do to postpone the more serious onset of symptoms. So, I tell myself this is really not denial, I am embracing it, right?

But, I bought a book on exercise specifically aimed at people who have what I have, and it only made me think like this--"Oh, that's not going to happen to me, I'm exercising." Sounds like denial to me. But the very fact that I'm denying this is helping me, right. Maybe this is what they meant when they said denial was more difficult to maintain as we mature. what doesn't make sense starts to make sense. Anyway, it's denial and ... I can't deny it.