Going "Sunny Side Up"

I recently finished reading the book “A Complaint Free World”, by Will Bowen. Now I feel convicted. I acknowledge that I have a problem.

“I am DeAnna and I am a complainer.”

As most of you know, I write a lot about the inherent power of language. And I write a lot about staying positive in both thought and language. And in spite of all of that, reading Bowen’s book made me painfully aware that I am still missing the mark in the area of positivity and that I am using my language skills to negatively influence my mood and my day. For example, I got up this morning and stepped outside and remarked to my husband “WOW! It is REALLY hot out here.” We got into the car and headed out for breakfast, and as I looked around his car I remarked, “This car is SO dusty inside. You should get some of those Armor-All wipes and keep them in your glove compartment.” As we sat in the restaurant looking at the breakfast menu, I remarked with a sigh, “Looks like I’ll be getting another omelet. What I wouldn’t give for a decent gluten-free pancake…” 

You get the picture.

Complaining is a very insidious vice, mostly because there are so many ways to disguise it. Complaining can take the form of “fact stating”. For example, in my conversation above I “commented” about the heat. True enough it IS hot – it’s been nearly 100 degrees every day. But, everyone here with me knows that. I am not stating anything that is informative, nor am I pointing out something that we could change for the better. It is an expression of a grievance. I am not happy that it’s hot, and I want to tell someone else that I’m not happy that it’s hot. That makes it a complaint. 

Complaining can also take the form of “constructive criticism”(my readers know I don’t believe in such a thing); that’s when we criticize or express dissatisfaction and then couple it with what we believe the other person could/should do to fix the problem. I pointed out that I believe my husband keeps a dirty car, which was my grievance, and then tacked on my expert advice about what he should do to remedy it. Call it what you will, I was complaining about his car. Nothing constructive about it.  If I don’t like his dirty car I should either be quiet or clean it myself. 

Complaining can also look a lot like helplessness or martyrdom. It’s “poor me” syndrome. We express our grievances and resentment by portraying ourselves as victims, as I did with my “wishing” for a meal option other than what was available. Poor Me can’t eat gluten. Cue the deep sigh and violins. As my mother used to say, “Stop complaining and be thankful for what you have.” That was good advice, in retrospect. 

Bowen challenges his readers to go for twenty one consecutive days without complaining (expressing a dissatisfaction or grievance rather than changing the circumstance). In his challenge, each time we complain we must reset the clock and start over again. His contention is that once we are able to go for three weeks without complaining, we will have established a new habit that will change the way we think, speak and act. I am going to see if he is right. 

Yep, I am going to try to go complaint-free. I suspect it will be very difficult, but I also suspect I will eventually succeed. If it is possible for anyone to do it, then it is possible for me as well. I don’t need any special skills, equipment or talents. I just need determination. And I am one of the most determined (a.k.a. stubborn) people I know. 

I believe I am about to change the world for the better – well, at least change my world for the better. And if you’d like to give this little exercise in self-control a try, I’d love to hear from you. They say that misery loves company, but I believe that commitment loves company too. If you are interested in joining me, send me an email and let me know. 

I hope you have an amazing week, and that each day finds you “sunny side up”. 

When "Weakness" Pays Off

One of the things we stress in the health care field is awareness of the “chain of infection”. The concept is a simple one. In order for a virus to spread, is has to have a pathway upon which to travel and a “port of entry” through which to infect its host. The infected person must expel the virus and the host must take the virus back in through a “port of entry”, such as the nose, the mouth or an open cut. That’s why we tell children to cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze and to wash their hands frequently. These sanitation measures are the best defense against illness and work to create a break along the “chain of infection”. 

The disease of bad attitudes, unkind words, defensiveness, and aggressiveness get passed along in much the same way that a virus does. It spreads from one person to another until it finally gets passed to someone who stops it dead in its tracks by choosing to respond maturely, patiently, kindly and politely. That person has chosen to be the “weak link” in the very powerful chain of bad behavior. 

Have you ever watched children get into an altercation? One child does or says something unkind to the second child. The second child responds with a negative response of her own. Pretty soon, you are pulling the two little combatants apart and hoping no one is bleeding…when you ask what happened, both will blurt out “(s)he started it!”. Children, lacking in maturity and decision making skills, respond with their emotions. They are developmentally incapable of relying on logic, reason and experience to choose appropriate behaviors, and often mirror the emotions and behaviors of those around them. But we adults aren’t like that, right? As adults, we never let our emotions override our reason…(yeah, right…)

Think about the last time your husband or wife said something that upset you. Or maybe it was a neighbor or co-worker, or the guy who cut you off in traffic. Did you act as the weakest link in the “chain of infection”, or did you keep the anger, insults and inconsideration going by responding in kind? Or perhaps you took in the bad behavior and “paid it forward” by taking your frustration out on someone else, like your dog or employees or kids. If you chose to be the “weak link” and refused to respond in kind, how did that make you feel? Did you feel empowered, more peaceful, more in control? How did you sleep that night? Conversely, if you chose to keep the anger going, how did you feel? How did you sleep that night? Did you feel healthy or did you feel “infected”?

I am personally trying very hard to learn to be the weakest link in the chain of inconsiderate behavior. It’s surprisingly difficult. Human nature is to react before we think; that’s what kept our distant ancestors from getting eaten by saber toothed tigers. If you wanted to find dinner rather than be dinner, you had to be ready to react; either flee or fight. No time for deep thinking unless you wanted those to be the last thoughts you ever had. But the instincts that saved us in bygone eras do not serve us nearly as well in our modern times. Nowadays, the thing most likely to kill us is stress, not tigers. That’s why our survival these days depends on being the weakest link – at least in regard to the chain of negative emotions and behaviors.

We have time to think about how best to respond. We can de-escalate a situation. We can decide to be the place the madness stops. But it isn’t programmed into our nature. It takes conscious effort, and it takes enough self confidence to be willing to be seen as the loser. And there lies the sticking point for most of us. We cannot bear to be seen as weak in any way, even if the “weakness” is what saves us in the end.

I encourage you to try, for just one week, to be the weakest link. Refuse to be a host for the “negativity virus”. You have the power to stop the chain of infection. The question is not “can you do it?” but “will you do it”?

Permission to Drift (Redux)

Happy Tuesday! I am on a much needed vacation this week, so I have resurrected a former Wick posting in which I write about the importance of rest and relaxation. Enjoy, and have a relaxing week!

Permission to Drift

We live in a world obsessed with speed. I typed the word “speed” into my internet browser and it delivered 94,000,000 results in .09 seconds.  Interestingly, we are no longer amazed by this. We expect it, and anything less simply won’t do.

Car makers sell us on how fast their cars will go, improved cleaning products tout that they will clean in “half the time”, and technology is evolving so quickly that a product is practically obsolete by the time we’ve learned to use it. We build high speed trains, add high speed lanes to the expressway, purchase high-speed internet, and are annoyed when our “fast food” isn’t being handed out the window by the time we drive around the building. With all this speed, you’d think we would have a surplus of time each day to do the things we actually enjoy, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. 

Almost everyone bemoans the fact that they “don’t have enough time” to do what has to be done, much less what they want to do. Each day speeds into the next in a blur of deadlines, emails, cell calls, and appointments. At the end of the day, if we ever get a moment to slow down without immediately falling into the sleep of pure exhaustion, we may find ourselves wondering if this is how it is destined to be… life as the “blur” that occurs between two great, silent pauses…

While technology may have evolved at the speed of light, the human body has not. We are simply not built to withstand life at the extreme pace our current culture demands without beginning to break down; either emotionally, physically or both. In order to survive at the most basic level, we need rest; in order to thrive and grow, we need things in our life which bring us peace, joy, and satisfaction. 

I recently returned from a week of much needed peace. No cell calls, no email, no internet. I had no appointments, no commitments and no plans. I simply sat with the sun on my shoulders and a book in my lap. Sometimes I took a walk. It took a day or two to clear the noise out of my head, to find escape from the grip of busyness that holds me in its tyranny far too much of the time. Countless times during those first few days, the Voice Of Busyness told me to check my email, watch the news, send a text, surf the web, or just go do something. I ignored it, but it was difficult. Eventually though, the annoying Voice Of Busyness quieted down and I was able to hear my own thoughts again. Not the noisy, busy, work thoughts I normally have. Not the thoughts about what I needed to do next, but thoughts about the kind of person that I want to be and the things that are important to me.

Author James Gleick once wrote:

“Recognize that neither technology nor efficiency can acquire more time for you, because time is not a thing you have lost. It is not a thing you ever had. It is what you live in. You can drift or you can swim, but it will carry you along either way.”

I am under no illusions as to how far down the river my journey has taken me. The mirror and my aching knees remind me every day. But I know this much is true: I am a better swimmer after I have allowed myself some time to drift. 

When is the last time you gave yourself permission to stop struggling and simply float for awhile?

Lighten Up!

The word on the street is that I may be one of the most stressed out people in America. 

Well, okay, maybe not me specifically, but women of my particular age bracket. It turns out that, according to a recent report released by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, women between the ages of 45-64 have the lowest overall well-being rates of any age group or gender in the United States, and the report attributes it to stress. The study even goes so far as to suggest that this may be the first generation of women in history that will not outlive men by at least five to seven years. This is frightening news, because if women die before men, who will make sure that the cosmetologist at the funeral home doesn’t do something unexpected to our hair before the viewing?  Who will see to it that our burial outfit doesn’t make us look fat? Who will thoughtfully organize the post-funeral potluck social (which, as we all know, is an important rite of passage in the south)? Talk about stress…I’m getting nervous just thinking about it.

But seriously, this is disturbing news, and not just for women. 

We all know that stress is a serial-killer, and yet we allow it to move into our lives and take up residence, even as it’s plotting how to strangle us in our sleep. In spite of the clear and present danger, we continue to over-plan, over-extend, over-commit and worry ourselves into an early grave. Legendary UNC basketball coach, Dean Smith, once remarked, “If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you'll die a lot of times.”  His point is well made, but it’s that last death that matters most. That’s the one there’s no coming back from. (And if you believe in reincarnation, DO NOT write me a letter to enlighten me on life after death, unless you used to be my great-grandmother Corter/Corder…in which case I need to talk to you about this name-spelling thing. It’s causing confusion at family reunions).

Lighten up readers. Not everything is an issue of life and death. Not everything that could happen is going to happen, and not everything that does happen will be as bad as we think. It’s time to gain some perspective. It’s time to learn to separate mountains from molehills.

A few years ago, when we bought our new home, my husband and I decided to do a self-move rather than hire professional movers (which turned out to be a questionable decision on our part). We rented some portable storage “pods” and began moving a few pieces of furniture into them each day. It was working out great. Right up until The Great Piano Incident.

That’s when we decided (I’m being magnanimous in my use of “we”) to load my spinet piano into the storage container by strategically positioning it onto two moving dollys and wheeling it down the gravel driveway and up the ramp into the big fiberglass box. Having precariously balanced the 600 lb. piano on the eight inch shelf of the dolly (another questionable decision), my husband instructed me to “keep it steady” while he went to close the garage door (I don’t think it’s even necessary for me to comment on the wisdom of that decision).  As soon as he walked away, the piano began to wobble on its ridiculous perch. Time passed in slow motion as the piano began to topple forward…I must have made some sort of distress call (things get fuzzy here), because my husband spun around and called out something helpful like “catch it!”. In spite of his good advice, I was no match for the momentum of six hundred pounds of wood, ivory and cast iron, so I just yelped and let go (I still contend that particular decision was a good one). 

My husband stood transfixed with horror and disbelief.  

I, on the other hand, laughed so hard that Diet Coke came out of my nose. 

I mean, come on, “insurance claim” and “I was only gone two seconds” and “blah, blah, blahs” aside, this was pretty darn funny. It would have been even funnier if it had happened to the neighbors, but still…

Don’t get me wrong, I understood that this was an unfortunate event. But, in the grand scheme of things that can go wrong, this was not a life-threatening event. (Well, it might have been if my husband had been able to catch me, but I can run pretty fast for a girl. And it was, after all, my piano, so what was he being so grumpy about?)

People, it’s about learning where to place your focus. Sadly, in a nation where we lead off the evening news with stories about Kate Middleton’s clothes rather than the famine in Somalia, it’s not surprising that we struggle to prioritize. But, all life events are not created equal, and our responses to them should reflect the true nature of the situation. If we are going to be angry, tense, worried or stressed out, let’s save it for occasions worthy of how much it is going to cost us. It might be a good idea to ask ourselves if what we are getting ready to fixate on is worth losing moments, or even years, off of our life. We may not be able to stop ourselves from worrying over a sick loved one, but I propose that we can stop beating ourselves up if we miss one of our kids’ soccer games (or deconstruct a piano in the driveway). We should develop the habit of asking ourselves, “How serious is this…really?”, and then proceed from there.

Mark Twain once advised, “Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.” I think we should listen to him. This is sound advice. 

And to all you Reincarnationists out there: If you used to be Mark Twain, it’s okay if you write me a letter. But nothing from Cleopatra or Napoleon, please. You took yourself way too seriously.