On Being Annoying, Part 1

One of the funny elements about complaining as a way of managing anxiety…is that when someone points out we’re complaining or being negative, we actually DENY we’re complaining at all.  I mean, that’s funny.  We people are funny.

*Woman A: “The way the seating is arranged in this restaurant is really stupid.”

*Woman B: “There you go, complaining.”

*Woman A: “No I’m not.  I just think they could do what they are doing better.”

     **Man: “I bet your sister is going to bring that slimy carrot and orange Jello salad, again.”

     **Woman: “There you go, being negative before we even get there.”

     **Man: “I’m not being negative, I just making the observation that your sister has brought the same disgusting salad to every meal since I’ve been in the family.”

 Or my personal favorite ‘gripe and deny’ method—

      ***Woman: “I can’t believe you wore that to the party.”

      ***Man: “There you go, being negative.”

      ***Woman: “No, I’m not. I’m just trying to help.”

Variations on the Complaining Re-direct include:

      Person A:  “There you go being negative.”

      The ‘Popeye Response’:  “I y’am the way I y’am.”  or,   The Competitive Complaining Response: “You’re the one keeping me awake last night going on about your sister.”

Part Two on Complaining as a way of Annoying People … will give you the chance to determine your dominant complaining method.  For now, let’s understand how negative remarks change our lives.  Remember we people are not just funny, we are predictable.  We move toward positive experiences; we move away from punishing experiences. 

Let’s say each of us is surrounded by a bubble of atoms or air we’ll call our atmosphere.  Our ‘atmosphere’ often overlaps with others so that we have sort of a couple or a group ‘atmosphere’.  Each word and expression has a plus or minus quality that jiggles the atoms either in a ‘feel better’ way or a ‘feel worse’ way.  Or, think of the ‘atmosphere’ as having a plus or minus rating on a graph, such as the kind used to follow the ups and downs of a stock.  Every expression, every word, ticks the line on the graph up or down…sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. 

This means, as we study the art of negativity further, we can choose how to affect the systems of which we are a part.  Our Emotional Guidance System, however, does not agree.  That wimpy tyrant exaggerates the influence of others… “You made me depressed, angry, and complaining.”  And minimizes personal choice…. “After he complained about me, I did what I had to do.  I drove my motor cycle into a ditch.”

Note: Okay, I hear you five star complainers out there already saying:  “But whyis the ambience, the ‘feel’ of my relationship altered just because I point out a problem?…It shouldn’t be….He should be tougher….No one should be bothered by what I say….Oh, and you shouldn’t be correcting me. You should be paying more attention to your own negative behavior.” …….All of which is COMPLAINING, by the way.

Could we humans be any funnier? 

Since complaining…that someone is complaining….is actually complaining….

When I left Austin for Columbia, South Carolina, expecting a three hour flight, I’d already begun salivating on the lovely room service I’d order around 7.  Filet, medium, Caesar side salad, and a baked potato. The restaurant in the Hilton, I knew was a Ruth’s Chris…so…ah… (sound of trumpets).

When I arrived in Columbia, South Carolina, at 3:45 in the morning—starving because I’d had too much pride (which usually translates to ‘I was too stubborn’) to fall for Denial Danny’s ‘free’ granola bars—what I actually had for dinner was a Lean Cuisine shrimp and noodles.  Yes, some hotels have this little pantry and a microwave near the front desk.  I hit four minutes on the micro cooking my dinner while I checked in.  I stumbled up to my room, threw my belongings about, found a re-run of Nancy Grace and opened my cuisine.

The only way I can account for the horror under the plastic lid is that the ‘meal’ required at least twice the prep time I allowed.  We’re talking cold shrimps looking like gray worms.  I stabbed my plastic fork into the ‘pasta’ and all three tines popped off when they hit the frozen chunk in the middle. 

I went from a Ruth’s Chris steak to this…. Oh, I know…if my Emotional Guidance System hadn’t been in full hysterical charge of my actions… I might have bothered to read cooking instructions or test the food before….

Changes in my plans are unfortunate, unpleasant, and inconvenient…but not a disaster unless I decide to make it one.   I DECIDE.  YEEEEEEK….THIS IS UNBELIVABLE……….

Remember, our goal is to work toward improved emotional functioning…to have our actions (inward and outward) be more and more determined by our Best Thinking…that is our Thinking Guidance System…and less and less have our actions determined by emotional pressure from other people or from within ourselves…our Emotional Guidance System.

And this continuing example represents one, feeble psychologist’s reminder of how tough efforts toward maturity can be.  My goal is that my own humiliating lack of mature functioning will inspire some other soul to do better…

Dateline:  Chicago O’Hare. Second leg of re-routed trip to Columbia, South Carolina. (See ‘A Case of Attempted Maturity at 30,000 Feet’).

Technically, the journey to Columbia was supposed to be completed three hours ago, and I was supposed to be enjoying a club sandwich and a glass of iced fume blanc from room service.  But, I’ve adjusted.  I’m doing great.  I’ll make good use of having an extra three hours in the airport.  I’ve proved something to myself and, hopefully, showed you guys what can be done if you give your Thinking Guidance System a chance.  After several determined minutes of repeated saying to myself: “While the changes in my plans… are unfortunate, uncomfortable, and inconvenient ….this is not a disaster unless I decide to make it one….”  I was almost giddy, I felt so ‘in charge’ of my emotions. 

I enjoy a sandwich while standing since no chairs are available in the jammed food court.  But, I’m cool.  My special person called on his way to the basketball game, asked me how I thought it would turn out, and I LAUGHED and remarked I was sure it would be great fun.  There had been a pause, then he asked, “Wow. Where did you get this enthusiasm, missing the game and all yourself?”  

Not knowing what awaited, I twittered back something nice, something airy and sophisticated, showing off my hard-fought managing of my Emotional Guidance System.

United Express 6960 boards right on time.  Swell.  Things are looking up, I pat myself on the back for handling the inconveniences of air travel with the maturity of a guru.  I smile at my fellow travelers.  Behind me are two young men heading to Ft. Jackson for basic training and then to who-knows-where.  I thank them for their service.  One, we’ll call him Arnold, since he’s joining the Army, mentions that he’s never flown before.  His seatmate from the same small Ohio town, cuffs him on the back.  I add reassurances….because I’m such a seasoned and easy-going flyer.  Because I can read the future and everything’s going to be just fine, I say, motherly like.

Army Arnold is the first one of us to crack after we’d sat unmoving, the door not closed for over an hour.  “What if something wrong with the plane?”Arnold asks.  “Oh, not to fret,” I say. ”This kind of hold-up happens all the time.  They can make up the time in the air.” 

“Good,” Army Arnold says, because they have a bus to catch and a two-hour ride to Ft. Jackson.  “Not to worry,” I patter on, “you’ll be there before midnight.”  Now right here, some sort of survival instinct should have kicked in. Why do I have to make things worse for myself by talking about things I know nothing about? 

Ten minutes later, the pilot, Positive Pete a voice who I will come to know well, comes on to ‘update’ our adventure party.  It seems the airport computers usually sending pre-flight data are down…Thus, the needed paperwork, as we speak, is being hand-carried… and, as soon as the paperwork arrives, we’ll be off in a jiff.  Of course. This is not a disaster…unless I decide to make it one.

That word, ‘jiff’… a jiff.  A JIFF.  So innocent, so reassuring.   Our flight attendant, Denial Danny, passes out free granola bars.  Now, I’m not bitching about the granola bars….it just seemed a bit of a reach when Denial Danny’s emphasized the word ‘free’ as if an ounce of sugared oats should make us even with the airline for being late. …Sometimes, late at night, in one of my many branch Hiltons…a cruel voice calls to me out of the darkness…taunting me with just one word over and over.  JIFF.

Maybe I’m just too immature to fly.  The ticket agent in Austin telling me my flight was three hours late and I’d need some serious re-routing…she seemed to be of that opinion.  She kept saying, “Would you stop saying I’m ruining your day….I am not personally doing anything to you…Also, would you mind picking your forehead up off the counter, ma’am?”  What did she want from me?  I’d already stopped crying.

Dateline: American Flight 2486  Austin to Chicago.  Right now I am high above the clouds after an on-time departure at 1:15.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Well, not really.  Since I wasn’t planning on going to Chicago…Or, for that matter any further north than Dallas.   But I am not captain of my fate.

Instead of the trip I booked—Austin (Leave at 10:43a.m.) –Dallas (an hour later)-Columbia, South Carolina-Arrive Columbia at 2:00. 

My current routing is —Austin-Chicago (Yes, I actually lose ground)-Wait 4 hours, then Arrive Columbia at 10:00 tonight.  

Now I’m squeezed into a middle seat in the back by the toilet on American Flight 2486 to Chicago (instead of the exit leg-room seat I’d so carefully reserved in that little ole thirty minute leap to DFW) I am surrounded by a family of five adults and one child from one of those less hygienically obsessed nations.  Boarding of the plane was held up when this family attempted to board with ten freight-sized luggage carriers way beyond the size of carry-on.  In all, the six were coming aboard with thirteen bags thinking they’d discovered a loophole in Americans policy of charging for extra checked bags. Apparently, my seatmates were moving to Chicago and hoping to save on the moving van. …I don’t want to be rude…you of all people know how desperately I wish I wasn’t noticing any of this stuff.  But I want you to know what I’m working with here.  This is more than my usual what-no-almonds-only-peanuts flying trauma.

Knowing that these six people dressed in a manner uncommon among U.S. citizens…actually drug all these bags through security without a flicker…well, it’s scary, that’s all I’m saying.   Usually, security spots overage issues.  Once preparing to board flight from Kansas City to Tulsa to attend a wedding…I attempted to board with a computer, a book bag, and the dress for the wedding in a plastic laundry bag.  I was stopped and told—“Two carry-ons, one which must fit under your seat, ma’am,”…forcing me to….while in line… remove the dress from its hanger slide it up over my jeans…wiggle out of my jeans…then holding the dress up as best I could over my top half, pull my T-shirt over my head, catching the sleeves up and re-covering myself…all of this while walking and not holding up the line… as I stuffed my jeans and shirt into the book bag.

Oh well.  Refreshments….Sometimes the flight attendants start the beverage cart at the back, sometimes the front, even the middle once in a while for variety. Wanna take your best shot at where they’re starting beverage service on this flight?

Okay.  Instead of focusing on the unpleasantries of my situation, that is, instead of listening to my Emotional Guidance System… which is screaming: “This is ridiculous!  Overwhelming! This should not be happening!” …I am going to attempt a leap…a little hop…in functioning.  I am going to play around with a few sentences I have heard represent the internal dialogue of more mature persons.

Therefore I shall use this screen to practice saying to myself:

Okay, I can’t just leap into this.

I need to make a couple of things clear at this point.  The changes in my plans include: triple time in the air, nine and a half hour later arrival, almost six hours on layover, another night of vending machine food instead of a nice bounty from Hilton room service, crap television watching prison reality shows heavily dosed with infomercials instead of watching the University of Texas basketball game at 8 o’clock and AROUND WHICH I CAREFULLY SCHEDULED THIS WHOLE TRIP, stand-by seat assignments over preferred seating, who knows what kind of hotel room, since the only rooms left will, for sure, be dingy closets next to the clanking ice machine [Okay, I’m not totally sure this will happen. It’s possible I’m judging the future on my own history of switching rooms.]…And, since I will have passed up my usual go-to-sleep window by the time I’m settled in my shabby hole-in-the-wall with my stale peanuts and staring at violent prisoners throwing body fluids on staff…I will end up taking some Benadryl to drop off…which means waking up tomorrow with dry mouth and slight memory loss.

I just arrived in Chicago.  I asked the agent where I could find the gate for the next flight since it was another airline.  The flight attendant looked at me and asked, “Are you going to WALK the whole way?” 

“I guess,” I said.  “Is there a bus or train?” I asked.  The attendant said, “No.”        

To be continued when I can stop the shaking.  All did not go well.

If your Christmas late evening was marred by a relative knocking over the Christmas tree (again) after too much eggnog…if or you ended up dodging flying turkey bones as one of those always charming inter-family political debates blew up….you likely looked out the bay window at the stars thinking….”Next year, I’m jetting out of the country as soon as the presents are opened.”

Ahh….not so fast.  You were only able to imagine the bliss of escape on a jet to faraway, because you’d not yet heard of the Rude Lady in Seat 20B, American Airlines 875, Dallas-Ft.Worth to Cabo San Lucas.  Prior to experiencing RL20B, I’d been considering working on being less judgmental as my New Year’s Resolution.  By the time we were over Juarez, RL20B had proven ”being less judgmental” was too big a reach for a weenie like me in 2010.

Everything started out okay.  My special one and I are seated in 21 E&F, middle and window, exit row.  The exit rows (20 and 21) are much prized for the extended leg-room.  The exit rows can only be pre-reserved…by very frequent fliers (sort of a hazard pay) and only by signing up very early for the flight.  Which is to say…a passenger goes to a lot of trouble to reserve an exit row seat…like say…Seat 20B…Aisle, Exit Row.  The plane is fairly empty on the ground in DFW until the last five minutes when crowds came aboard.  The flight attendants immediately started in prompting people to quickly take their seats to try and make an on-time take-off.

In front of us a nice older couple has taken their months-ago reserved exit row seats–Seats 20 D and E (Aisle and Middle).  Across the aisle, a young blonde woman travelling solo, has taken her long ago reserved Exit Row seat, Seat 20A against the window.  Thus, Row 20 is full except for the 20B on the aisle and 20F, across the aisle.   (Now you can forget Row 21, since all of the outrageousness has to do with Row 20.)

Move 1:  A loud young man and his wife roar up the aisle.  The man stops at Row 20, starts waving his hand over the couple in front of us as says, “Hey!  You guys don’t mind moving over to the window and middle do you?  I’d like to have this aisle seat so I can (this is a quote) “Holler up to my friends up there?…And, this way I can sit with my wife.”  Not knowing what was to come, the sweet couple said, “Sure. We’d prefer the aisle and middle, but if it’s important to you, we’ll move over.”  Which they did…thinking the Rude Guy was through messing with them. 

But, they’d be wrong.  Once settled across from each other on the aisle, Row 20, the husband turns to the nice couple to his right who’d accommodated him by switching from their preferred aisle and middle, to a middle and window on Row 20.  Now, this guy makes a fresh proposal: “Say, you guys wouldn’t mind getting up and switching with my friends up in Seat 14E (center) and 12E (center), would you guys? Me and my friends, we’d like to talk on the trip.”  (I’m taking down the quotes as we fly).

The sweet man in 20E answers in an admirable tone,  “But sir, you’re asking us to give up extra leg-room Exit Row seats for middle seats…” he said, thinking that would be enough.

But no.  The Rude Guy says, “Come on, now.  Me and my friends, we just want to sit together.  See we’re traveling with our friends.”

Nice guy points out, “But, sir, the seats you want us to switch to are not even close to each other. My wife and I would like to sit together.”

“Gee, Mister,” says Rude Guy, “I thought you’d want to help out.”

At this point, particularly if you’re not a frequent flier, you may be thinking….this doesn’t sound like all that big of a deal. 

But then, of course…. You are assuming what the rest of us on the plane (and this party of six had by this point buried all other conversations with their ‘hollering’ back and forth from the front to the back of the plane)….we, like you, are assuming that the Rude Woman who plunked down in 20B across the aisle from her Rude Guy husband….we’re assuming that the Rude Woman had actually been assigned Seat 20B…that she had pre-reserved the premium seat.  But we…like you….like the flight attendant would be wrong.  And when the woman who had the assignment of 20B, who’d been given a temporary seat by a flight attendant who’d been in a hurry to get the plane off and who had assumed she’d been mistaken about her seat….when this woman shows up to claim her seat 20B….that’s when the fun starts.

Tune in for Part Two: Rumble in the Skies Over Mexico.

 

How bright and appealing are the fruits in your future?

What if your participation in the food pyramid is determined by how well you manage anxiety?

I know.  Hello Big Mac.

But really….to what degree are your choices….influenced by your mood?….your current opinion of yourself?  How your career’s going?….heck….how work’s going today?   To what degree are your behavior choices influenced by how your special person is thinking about you? (Or, more correctly….how you THINK he is thinking…and, by the way, you’re wrong.)

“Which is more important?  The world as it exists?   Or the world we’re making up as we go along?”

Symptomatic behavior, from angry outbursts to staying in bed all day…. are a result of a combination of:  physical elements (including genetics and current state of health);   life events (including upbringing experiences);  the individual’s basic level of functioning (typical ability to manage stress and change);  the functional level and availability of the emotional system (family).

And behaving in anything like a healthy, reasonable manner is hard as trying to drag yourself out of a pot of setting taffy.  If it were any easier, no one would miss their daily walk, no one would be overweight, no one would overdrink….there wouldn’t even be a “Latest Stupid Diet Discovery Aisle) in the grocery store.  Oh, and there’s now a separate section called: Anti-Aging.  Now what kind of dream world is that?

I don’t have the answer on how to suddenly function better, how to easily conquer my ever-present, anxiety-driven,  Emotional Guidance System.  I haven’t taken my afternoon walk since….ahhhh…since we returned from Cabo San Lucas….since I returned to real life.  I’ve figured it out how to cure all of us.  If we can all stack up enough hotel and airline points to live permanently in a resort on the tip of Baja…I mean…we’re fixed.  What a miracle.

Let’s start with the symptom of not eating fruit.  Grazing the buffet overlooking the Sea of Cortez, I had no problem filling up my bowl every morning with strawberries, bananas, pineapple, apple slices.  “Beautiful fruit,” I’d exclaim.  “Omelet?” they asked.  “Oh, not for me.  This fruit looks great!” 

Now, I’m back at my Dallas national world headquarters Hilton…and I can hardly look at the fruit.  Gosh, all those healthy behaviors had come so naturally in Mexico.  What happened I ask, as I finish up my bacon and wash down my blood pressure pill with coffee?

Now BEFORE WE BLAME the ENVIRONMENT and slap on all the cliches…”work too hard…traffic…weather…mom late picking you up from kindergarten…”…JUST STOP IT already.

I, like all of you, can take more charge of the world I see and make up.  I can make those strawberries more colorful.  And, there’s a way you can start right now.  Say out loud, “Wow, what a beautiful, interesting sky.  What lovely______.”  Because remember, unlike the unfortunate Princess Diana…YOU ARE ALIVE.  (See post on What Do You Have that Princess Diana Doesn’t?)

And as long as you and I are alive, we’ve got a shot at changing what goes on inside our chest cavities.  We’ve got a shot at joy.

Jellybeans….Jellybeans were everywhere…and I didn’t have time or energy for the clumsy interruption. Who does have the time for messy interuptions?

Trudging my computer case across the tiled floor of my office and out to my car, I bent over to pick up a Coke can I’d earlier set by a chair…

When the opened box of Ike and Mike’s (tube-shaped jellybeans for those into adult foods) tucked into one of the case’s pockets splattered everywhere… I snarled, I cursed, I bent over to pick up the flying pieces….Of course, in the process, I spilled more as, in my hurry and misery, I hadn’t secured the box. I snarled and cursed some more.

Always ready to take control, my Emotional Guidance System, (search site, if unfamiliar) SAID: “Great! Just what I needed!  I’ve had it!  This is too much. My knees are alreadykilling me, I’m late for an appointment…. Crazy dog will be in here hogging these jellies down any second…and I’ll have multi-colored poop to deal with for days!

This is terrible, horrible, and unbelievable! I drop my computer case…on my foot… “%#@&”… This is just great.
That’s when “the moment” happened without any warning. After years of training in psychology, Eastern meditation, libraries of books, and many hours instructing others in emotional life….

The moment occurred without effort on my part.

Some little creature inside my brain hit me square between my squinty eyes. “What keeps you…from enjoying this moment just as much as you enjoyed playing fetch with Crazy Dog last night?”
What? Is it possible that all those psychologists saying each person is in charge or his or her own happiness…actually have something? And, if they (we) have…why is it so difficult If being alive is being in each and every second?

What is keeping me…you… from enjoying this moment….the one NOW… as much as the favorite moment you are planning this holiday?

I don’t have an answer.  When the ‘moment’ occurred, I felt something loosen.  And I smiled, just a little.
I know, this is heady stuff.   To think all this could come from splattered jellybeans.

The way I see it, each of us has plenty of uncomfortable situations we cannot, and actually, do not want to avoid.  Situations and relationships that our BEST THINKING tells us we’d better grow up and manage ourselves, if we are to have a long and positive life.

The situations requiring us to “get over it” and manage our anxiety are many, including physical illness and discomfort (yep, we all get sick)…aging (yep, that, too, even if hours at the gym and a little help from the surgeon delays reality)…friends who are not at their best, anxious family members, the anxiety that comes with learning new skills or meeting new people, war, elections, colonoscopies, dental work…the give and take that makes for a solid long-term marriage…

These situations require us to grow rather than run.  And there are plenty of them.

But, then, there’s the occasional uncomfortable situation when we can simply escape rather than grow up.  Now, of course, I’d like to be the Buddha, I’d like to say I am now, or think I could at some point in the future be, completely in charge of my anxiety…that I can or hypothetically could…respond to discomfort, criticism, and all the hard parts of reality without experiencing painful anxiety…but that’s not going to happen… it’s a journey…

Given the non-Buddha probability, a little skill in figuring out when you can afford to duck…that is, when ‘ducking’ has no significant long-term downside….and when ‘ducking’ an unpleasant situation is going to come back to bite you…or peck you.

Which situations can you afford to ‘escape’ or ‘make go away’ with money or a little extra slippery effort?

Example:  When you are on a full flight and an unusually tall or expansive person is assigned the seat next to you…this is one of those situations you’re best off to call on your skills of managing anxiety. 

However, if you are seated in an uncrowded movie theater and an unusually tall person sits down in front of you, all that’s necessary to relieve your discomfort is a little extra effort on your part. 

Of course, your move could still tie you in a knot if you’re not at the theater alone and the other person disagrees with your decision to move… or takes the moment to recite all the ways you are too demanding.  In this situation your decision to escape has sparked an anxiety in your movie-going pal.  If you and your movie-going pal had an argument on the way to the movie, or if your movie-going pal is hungry, the counter-move, sometimes called a ‘change back’ move can be more intense.

Last night I had one of those ‘tall guy sits in front of you at the movies’ events occurred.  And a chance for an example was born. 

Right there in the glitz of Las Vegas.  Yes, even Vegas is no more than fodder for the struggle between the Emotional Guidance System and the Thinking Guidance System….Maybe Las Vegas was the place the Emotional Guidance System was born.

Next Las Vegas, the Playground of the rich and anxious….and the just anxious.

In my more mature Thinking Guidance System moments, I have admitted…even, gasp, … pointed out that our most frequent response to anxiety is criticism. 

Thus, if I were able to learn from such an obvious statement…you’d never hear about the naked lunch.  Because I’d be too cool to have been part of it…or at least I’d be cool enough to fake that I was too cool to have slid down the slope of maturity, totally in the grip of my Emotional Guidance System…but I’m not that good.

Oh forget it.  I’m not even cool enough to stick with a pre-emptive apology for my anxiety-run-amok naked lunch….If you feel saddened and ache for a psychogist who’s perfect…(not a psychologist, really)…Dr. L’s out there, more than ready to tell you how much better she would handle absolutely everything…perfectly…and, for sure, better than I did.

I sat down for the luncheon.  Just when I thought I could relax, unbutton that metal snap digging me a second naval…and enjoy sharing lunch with new buddies…the whole plan went dark.  Just when I thought I could relax, unbutton that metal snap digging me a second naval…and enjoy sharing lunch with new buddies…the whole plan went dark.

When I slipped into this fiction writing gig, I imagined one of the pluses would be that I’d have the opportunity to hang with other writers…that we’d wile away the hours sharing our foibles over endless margaritas…confessing the dark transgressions inspiring our stories.

I pictured something rich like Hemingway leaning against the bar in a Madrid alley tavern, one arm around Scott Fitzgerald while F. Scott cried and admitted his wife’s Zelda’s insanity, one arm around a whiskey bottle.  I thought it was a rule:  To be a writer, you must be riddled with flaws.

Apparently, my expectation was no more than wishful thinking…and, perhaps, my rationalizing that my many spectacular screw-ups bring something useful into my life.  Lunch went thusly.  I sat down with other writers at the sponsored conference lunch….I looked around…right away I knew the black cowboy hat was a mistake….but, heck, I know my sneaky, anxiety-fueled Emotional Guidance System usually convinces me that I have nothing in common with new people I meet…people I love once I’ve calmed down.  I settled in.

I ordered coffee.  The man across from me began a lecture on why he’d given up all caffeine.  The woman next to him suggested several herbal teas she enjoyed now that she had advanced from being a vegetarian to the more green-friendly lifestyle of a vegan.  The man next to me took out his bottle of water to replace his iced water goblet…

Cue up the background music now…the soundtrack from Jaws…growing louder and louder. Cue up the killer shark, circling.  I am but foolish tiny fish, so insignificant, I’m about to be sucked through the shark’s grinding digestive system without notice, spit out along with the plankton and algae.

I’ve had many people ask, “Don’t you think the best writers are depressed?”

Well, I’m not depressed that often, but I am the proud owner of many vices and disturbing failures acquired on this journey.  I guess my mistake was thinking that among other mystery and thriller writers there were others whose characters and stories began with scarred knees and best forgotten nights on the border, and not just the Texas-Mexico border…the borders of love, law, sanity, and overindulgence.  But, as usual, I gravely misread what I was up against.

Okay, back to the banquet luncheon.  (Jaws soundtrack…picture yours truly as Tweety Bird in a black cowboy hat.)  The subject of drugs and the border came up and, since border mayhem was a subject I knew something about, a readily jumped in.  I mentioned the hardship of my friends in Mexico losing businesses built over generations because of the hideous actions of the drug cartels. I described how the police at the Mexico City Benito Juarez Airport wear masks because if a man is identified as working for the authorities, he will return home to find his family…wife, grandma, the babies…everyone dead.

I expected a cool reception since most strangers to the border have strong feelings about Texans and Mexicans.  But, I was in no way prepared for what happened next…manana, promise.

Dateline: American Airlines flight from DFW to Indianapolis.
Emotional Status: Low. Emotional Guidance System in complete control. I feel like…think that…I don’t want to go to Indianapolis for six days. Slipping into an emotional swimming pool of exaggeration…I’m quite sure every moment of the trip will be a pain and I likely will never recover from the experience. So that’ the back story. Now. The challenge. I’m thinking about ‘decisions’ as I’m writing on decision making…
The flight is late. I lurk around the ticket counter trying to decide if I want to spring for an upgrade. And why would I cough up an extra hundred dollars for a two hour flight? Why because I’m on the edge and I’m hungry.
I ask and learn there is one seat left in first class if I want to upgrade…I wonder down the concourse, my stomach twisting with the decision. I find a Blue Mesa Fast Taco. I have three.
The urge to upgrade is gone. As I board the plane, I pass the empty first class seat. The ajacent seat is occupied with one of the largest men I’ve ever seen. He has two scotch minis on his tray.

I settle into my seat in the exit row. The middle next to me remains empty.
I am a WINNER! I guessed right. I have superpowers!
How pathetic is that? When your Emotional Guidance System is in charge…life is really scary. If the plane had been on time, I would have upgraded, and been a wreck because I guessed wrong. Life isn’t easy when you live it as a weenie.

Now before we get started here, I should describe my effort to engage my THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM and let go of something I cannot change. I am giving up arguing with and spewing sarcasm to the ‘virtual people’  (recorded voices, used by any company with more than one employee) trapping me into playing ‘Voice Recognition Hell’.  You know, I say, “Jerry’s Bar and Grill,” and cheerful virtual person says, “Jerrold Barbill?  Did I get that right?”…I am giving up the fight, joining technological reality… Now on to the elementary view.

We humans like to control our space.  Maybe it’s an evolutionary element…maybe those who best managed to get take care of their space …survived.

Now, wait a sec, this doesn’t mean you get to walk on other people’s toes and blame it on evolution.  We have a ‘fight or flight’ stress response hanging around in our psyche to save us from saber-toothed tigers, too.  And, just like our stress response is not all that useful…  (How many times in your life will you actually be called upon to lift a car off a person?)

…Our little desire (desperate need) to control our space can do more harm than good in our lives.  Which brings us to the six houses across from the elementary school and the people who live there.  Houses in the area around the school have sweeping St. Augustine front yards.  Every school day, carloads of parents and children park along the curb across from school. In the morning, parents are busy covering last minute reminders, kids are searching for backpacks, and sliding out of the cars. Every afternoon parents return loading talking kids into cars. Morning and night neighborhood children close enough to walk to school converge from all directions.

So where’s the problem?  Several years ago, one of the home owners with the elementary school view decided to reclaim the slightly beaten down St. Augustine along the curb in front of the house. He or she put up a homemade sign– cardboard tacked to a ruler…which read: “Please stay off the grass.”

The sign was beaten to the turf with the first car door swinging open.  A few days later a larger sign, still cardboard and a Sharpie, but this time nailed to a stake from Home Depot, replaced the first effort.  The homeowner’s efforts stirred the hearts of others along the street who had suffered the patter of little St. Augustine. Two other signs popped up…to no avail.

Homeowner number one then sticks two signs along the curb, this time printed in RED Sharpie.  His or her fellow protesters next door followed suit. Still the kids with more on their mind did not notice the signs.  Blades of grass were trampled.  Little lives were not changed.

Next, the homeowner surrounds the contested strip along the curb with a low white wire Home Depot fence.  Children think the little fence is fun to hop.  More signs, more little wire fences….Until today.  Today the distressed homeowner put up a two foot high white wire fence….about 50 feet long and two feet wide….think about it…this is really ugly…and the homeowner has planted spindly shrubs close together along the fifty feet of weird looking white picket fence.  Children do not step on homeowner’s lawn.

Can we say the homeowner has won?  How much time and money and stomach lining has gone into this project?  Are you glad, as I am that I am not the spouse of the obsessed one?  Can you imagine the evening conversations?

Oh, and yes, I have to say it…the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is that part of us that can convince us to persist in a LOSING ACTIVITY.  The THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM…is telling us we can’t win this battle….or, that if we do win….(the homeowner still has the ‘sit out in the yard every morning and night with a shotgun’ strategy)…the victory will not be worth the cost.

Marriage and having siblings usually awaken us to the skill of ceding territory…but not always.  We can’t have our territory OUR WAY all the time and share the planet or house with other people.  I’ve awarded my special person the edges of the bed for his shoes…I thought of the ‘sitting watch with a shotgun’ ploy, but he’s sneaky, he’d distract me somehow.  My picture of the world has all shoes in the closet.  I do not get everything I want.

Now, as for giving up territory…let’s talk about Crazy Dog and her pushy ways….

A few years ago a man was murdered by a stranger on the shoulder of Interstate 35 in downtown Austin in the wee hours of the morning.  Why? 

Because the stranger beating the victim didn’t know when to ‘let it go.’    You see, the soon-to-be-dead guy had rear-ended the soon-to-be-a-murderer guy causing minor damage.  The beater guy couldn’t get his head around how someone could not avoid his vehicle on the more or less deserted highway.  He just couldn’t accept his world being invaded that way.  The fellow who was rear-ended jumped the rear-ender once he stepped out of his car.  He hit him about the face and head until the man collapsed. 

Now here’s the kicker, so to speak.  Realizing he’d truly hurt the guilty driver, the beater (who considered himself the victim) went into a 24 gas station and called 9-1-1.  Then he returned to the fallen man and kicked the fallen man until he was dead.

The Point:  You gotta know when to quit.  And then quit.

How do you know when to quit?  Just possibly, the THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM could be a help. 

CLASSIC SENTENCE:  Put some facts around the situation.  Factually- what are you really giving up by letting go of a grudge or injustice—real or imagined?

The EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is feeding us all sorts of malarkey:

              Exaggerations on the degree to which we have been inconvenienced by an event or another person.  (Everything I’ve worked for up to this point in my life is ruined!)

              Exaggerations of physical and emotional harm. (I can’t take this, not on top of all the other unfairness I’m already suffering!)

              Exaggerations of the other person’s motives (He didn’t even try to stop) and his or her overall character (You know the type.)

Challenge:  Notice an irritation today…traffic, a co-worker doing what she always does, a spouse forgets to ___, a newspaper article that usually ticks you off,…and let it go.

Part Two follows…The Madwoman with the Elementary School View…How to Give Away Your Power…the war of little feet…

Dateline:   October Evening, East Texas Highway.  Driving with myspecial person on the way to visit a relative in Shreveport, Texas.

It’s late, both of us have worked full days before starting on the 250 mile trip.  The purpose of the trip was to comfort an uncle and aunt after uncle was given a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.  Why am I adding these details?  Because later, when I’m decribing the movie of the world I have chosen to live in…I’m going to need some excuses. 

Looking Cool Tip:  Gaining sympathy is a useful technique when you realize you are being a jerk.  Prepare others for your jerk behavior by beginning every conversation by relaying how much you’ve been working lately, that you haven’t been sleeping well, or eaten in days.  The best excuse…and this is gem, so save it for when you’ve really made a mess of things…The best explanation for your out-of-control emotional spraying of others is…to say, “My doctor (’cardiologist’ has the best pull) has me taking a new medication and I think I’m having a bad reaction…”   The I’m-on-a-new-medication-for (pick important body organ) and I think I’m having a bad reaction is so good…the very people you have been abusing with your immaturity will calm down and try to help you.

The road is a two-lane highway, only one each direction through hilly country.  Thus, the ability to pass was limited and iffy.  Most of the time a “no passing” stripe occupied the center of the highway.  At some point along this lonely stretch of limited visibility…in my rearview I see an enormous truck growing in my rearview of my small sedan.  (Read: economical…this helps with the sympathy factor.)  “I can’t believe this guy!”  I glare in the mirror as if the truck driver is a mass killer who knows me… and has sign in his windshield announcing he hates me and I am his next victim… “What is thabt bozo back there thinking?”  I ask my special person in that little superior lilt that comes so naturally.  

“He can’t be thinking he can pass on this stretch of highway?”

That’s when the roaring started.  When I clutched the steering wheel in disbelief, barely able to hold my economical sedan on the road (at least that’s the way I was acting) as the White Freightliner pulled up alongside and stomped the diesel pedal with all he had.  The White Freightliner Maniac blew by me, then swung back in front of me.  Of course, I yelped and hit the brake as if I could barely avoid hitting him…which clearly wasn’t a problem since he’d outrun me already.  “I can’t believe he just did that!  Can you believe that?”  I ask.  “Get me some paper!  I’m taking down his license plate.  Look, there’s the number for his company.  Can you see that?  Get it down.  Just wait until his company’s going to love to hear what this guy has been doing!”

Armed with the Maniac’s phone contacts, I’m planning my scathing report to end jerko’s truckdriving career, when we stop at a station for fuel and a cold drink.  I notice the White Freightliner parked on the street.  I go in the mart for the drinks. While waiting to pay I notice a man at the pay phone. (It was a while back before cell phones, and of course, before I grew into the totally mature person I am now.)  He’s saying, “Ah, honey, I know it’s hard with the twins both sick. And junior teething and you still recovering from surgery…I’m coming as fast as I can.  Just hang on, I’ll be home soon…and stay up with the kids so you can get some sleep.”

I take the paper with his numbers on it out my pocket, tear it up…and slink back to the car.

Dateline: Dallas, Texas.  Hilton Branch Office

Is your desire to avoid something a fear based excuse or is there a factual reason you should avoid the activity?

The Point:  Being able to tell the difference between when you are avoiding something because… you have thoroughly experienced the activity before and determined factually that your participation in the activity makes no sense…and the times when you are avoiding an activity, saying you are operating from facts…but, in truth, you’re just afraid…Telling the difference between these two is important.

Clue:  An example of the first occurs when you eat tacos from a street stand in Mexico City several times and each time become violently ill…An example of the second type occurs when you didn’t have a date to the Eighth Grade Valentine Dance and you told your friends and yourself that you didn’t like dancing.

Code red:  Once again, going against unrelenting screaming evidence against such an endeavor….one more time….I determined that I would fix my website myself.  After all, everyone I ask about the wisdom of such an effort, jumps in with “Oh, yeah.  You can do it.  Anyone can do it.”

What could get me to undertake such foolishness?  Anxiety, of course.  Anxiety because the site isn’t perfect and I want it fixed NOW.  Thus, “I have to do what I have to do to get rid of this anxiety.  Prisons are filled with people having these same thoughts. I did try to listen to My Thinking Guidance System, that part of the mind capable of reviewing the past. 

My Thinking Guidance System said: “Look, you’ve let your anxiety seduce you into this website fixing fantasy before…and it was one step forward and two yards back.  It took days before you were back to where you started…You were a crazy person, a miserable mate, and you PROMISED me, your logical self, that you would never, ever, even with a gun at your head…never, ever…pull the first curtain of mystery code aside from your website and attempt….emphasis on ATTEMPT…to make improvements on your own….

My Emotional Guidance System said:  “You don’t understand.  This time is different.  I’m so anxious, I squeaked.  “I’ll just try a little…”

Thinking Guidance System:  “Nooooooo…save yourself… you WILL regret this…”

Emotional Guidance System:  “No, really, if the project starts to go South, I’ll abort.  I’ll come right back to the beginning and get some help.”

Of course, the above reasoning… if  my pathetic rationalizing and delusional ignoring of the past can be called reasoning…assumed…once I began my project, once I punched that button that said, “Consider your next move carefully as data and programming could be permanently erased from your computer,” ….there would be a way back.

Where ever you are, whatever you might have been doing on your computer at approximately two p.m., Central Standard Time, yesterday…if you experienced a random crash…I’m sure I caused it.  Also, that scream you so faintly heard coming from the central southwest…that was mine, too.

And what do we do when we get anxious?  Yep.  Go random and fling money around.  Yes, dazed and confused, I signed up for a site promising ten thousand website templates anyone can use….which I can’t even bring up.  Another fifty bucks into the Emotional Guidance System kitty.  So, I owe you one.  Go ahead and buy that new “breakthrough in abdominal flattening science”…..the thing that where you get on your hands and knees, lock your knees into these little cups, and whirl side-to-side…and you have the flat belly you’ve always dreamed of without any effort at all!”  Then we’ll be even.

You know what they say…. talk is cheap. 

No where is this truer than in psychobabble-land.  How easy the words…”It’s just your FEELINGS making you crazy….Not the real world… Not the FACTS.”  …roll off the tongue.

Oh, how glibly this truth can be spoken… If  you are not the person who is whacked out at the time.  If you are the Whacked Out One (the WOO), glib is a bit harder to muster.  In fact, the non-WOO could be in danger since their kind pointing out that we are not managing ourselves well … could just be enough for us to turn our WOO-ness toward the pointer-outer.

There was a time when I wasn’t quite sure anyone could really get a handle on strong emotions.   Several incidents convinced me that each of us has within us the power to manage anxiety better.  The first was the ”hot tea incident.”

Remember, just how well you are able to manage your anxiety around anxious people (the degree of FUSION, see recent posts for definition) depends partly on the nature of your relationship to the other.  In this case, the “other” was one of the first couples I saw for marriage counseling.  (Word to the wise… don’t be any psychologist’s third case.)  The nature of my relationship with the couple was… they were important because, like I said, they were my third case and messing up would register as “tragic.”

I seated the couple in a small room in the university health center which had next to it a snack room.  Only a pair of louvered doors separated the snack room from the consultation room, so that clients could clearly hear anything that occurred in the snack room.  Once the couple was comfortable, I went into the snack room to complete making myself a cup of hot tea.  I’d left the teapot boiling on the stove earlier.  I placed a teabag in a mug, brought the teapot over to the sink, and proceded to pour the boiling water into my cup.  Except I’d misjudged how much water was in the teapot, plus my hands were a bit shaky.  The result was that the boiling water raged out of the pot, roiling over my hand holding the cup.  We are talking really, really hot water.     And here’s the thing.  I did not so much as make a peep.  (Okay, if you’d been in the same room and could read lips, you could have picked out a couple of unfriendly pharases.)  In an ordinary situation in which it was not incredibly important for me to make a good impression, I would have screamed.  I would have let loose a few barn-learned epithets.  But I was quiet.  Something flipped in me then.  A knowledge I hadn’t had before.  I’d proved to myself that if a person wanted to badly enough, he or she could change an “automatic” reaction.  During the session, I quietly watched welts grow on my hand.

I re-mention the hot tea incident now, because understanding and dealing with FUSION, is tough sledding.  So tough that most people don’t even give it much of a go.  It’s easier to give other people responsibility for our feelings.  It’s easier to try to get other people to change.  (Not that this works, it’s just easier to focus on changing others than it is to focus on changing self.)  It’s easier to reach for short term anxiety binders-substances, shopping, relationship dependence, worry…

The “hot tea” incident proved there is hope.  Even those of us regular WOOs can manage our emotions better.  Even two percent is a huge gain.

The woman who ended her life in a stand-off with police, (Antidepressants, the Truth, and a Tribute, Pt.1) wouldn’t have seen herself as worthy of a tribute. But if she could have one, she would have wanted something that could help other people. 

After she thanked everyone who tried to help her.

No one chooses to be depressed. Just like everyone I’ve even seen with depression, she tried very, very hard for days and weeks and then years. Does anyone really think that a depressed person would say “No!” if offered a pill that would help? 

I make this tribute to the woman who tried hard, but lost, as she would have wanted it. That is, by honoring everyone of you who has, as she did, courageously taken medication in the face of exhausting and debilitating side effects.  Antidepressants aren’t magic and every one of them has side effects.  Few people can find the not-perfect, but best fit between side effects and positive results –with the first perscription.  The woman who finally gave up, bravely took one medication after another, always hopeful that one day she would see in a sunset the awe-inspiring beauty  typical people take for granted. 

And there’s how depression turns other people off.  Here was a woman who knew that when friends or relatives or even her doctors saw her coming, they felt dread.  She knew she’d gone from being a blessing to being a burden.  She took more medication hopeful that one day her friends and relatives would see her coming and feel some of the old welcome. She put up with the muscles twitches, the overpowering fatigue, the sleepless nights, the confusion…hoping that one day she’d approach others and see towards her… the kind of easiness her friends and relatives experienced around everyone…it seemed to her…everyone but her.

“What has happened to me?”  She’d ask.  “I’m not who I used to be and I can’t find her anymore.”

Taking medication is hard.  I have the greatest respect for each person willing to take antidepressents. Depression and Bipolar Disorder are biological realities that if we are lucky enough to not have in our genes, we should kiss the ground and never forget how blessed we are. Imagine, feeling blessed because a smile bubbles up when you watch a puppy at play.  Kiss the ground. We did not do anything to deserve this automatic response, this easy access to joy. Neither does a depressed person do anything to lose that easy access to joy.

 

Antidepressants are good medicine. The medications we have available now are a hundred times more patient friendly and side effect free when compared to what was available when I first worked at a hospital. I am most definitely not suggesting the use of medications contributed to suicide.  I’m saying that psychotropic medications are limited; medication isn’t the cure most people think. Less than one-third of people taking anti-depressants get an “adequate” response, one third experience a little positive change and life-dampening side effects, and one-third have more symptoms than they did without medications.

To each and every one of you who has braved medication, who has struggled to feel the joy most people take for granted–hats off.

How’s your “Own Little World?” 

How great would your own little world be if you were suddenly Star-Trek-rematerialized as a child beggar along a filthy bridge where no prospects came along beyond a few street drunks, a tourist or two from small Pacific Islands where newspapers are scarce….and one dopey blond who ignores the truth about Mexico today because her mother, who died suddenly at forty-two, had, along with Dad, every summer, loaded up the peach-colored van, the blond, her sister, and brother…to spend summers in Colonial cities and Indian villiages, while Mom wrote her travel column on Mexico adventures with children?

How great would your little world be if you were on that bridge?

Dateline: Tijuana, Mexico.  Crossing the riverbed bridge. 

Incident:  The day is hot and windy.  Sand swirls on the bridge stinging those very few of us who still dared to cross the Big Brown Line.  The landscape is grim.  The future looks worse.  The police wear masks to keep the drug lords’ slaves from taking their pictures then going to their homes and murdering their families. 

My Own Little World’s a mess.  My feet are killing me.  What’s wrong with me that I just had to come across?  What was I thinking?  I mean, the armed forces have banned their personnel from crossing into Mexico… Why do I get myself in these ridiculous situations? I hear a siren, and whirl heading back to the USA at a trot.  My head down, charging for the border, I hear a wild squeaking sound and tiny high-pitched shreiking voice.

What?  I spot her.  A little girl, in full Tarahumara modest garb–full-length dress, hightop leather shoes, leggings, and a straw hat.  Maybe five, probably four.  She sits with her back braced on the inner wall of the bridge, her legs stuck out in front of her.  Her blue-black Indian hair squirts off her scalp in pert ponytails.  On her lap she holds a squeezebox.  Her eyes are closed but still she’s grinning big-time.  She’s singing a tune only she knows as loud as she can and clutching her squeezebox in and out with her happy screeching.  She’s having a good time in the middle of all this.  She’s singing her song as if the whole world and all the angels are listening.

How can she do that?    Who knows?   Exactly, I mean.  If there was a formula, if it were as easy as positive thinking, there’d be no exaggerated braking and hand-signalling on the freeway, no relentless dieting and gaining and useless machine buying, no avoiding high school reunions, no picking at the spouse when we know that action never turns out well, no criticizing at all since criticism is only anxiety shot outward and stuck on someone else.

Behind me, in the bar of my San Diego Hilton national world branch office I hear an ESPN story asking if a quarterback with too many interceptions had considered suicide . . . And I see that little girl’s estatic face.  Sure, she had a dirty paper cup between her ankles, hoping.  Sure, her shawled four foot mother was only a block away holding the cheap bead earrings she’d strung last night into the path of every hopeful.

Why this blog?  I want what that little girl with nothing had.  I want you to have it, too.

But ours will not be a journey for the weak or the crowd looking for easy answers.  Take that back.  For I’m certainly among the weak.  However I am determined.  There’s no easy formula for managing what goes on inside our chest cavity….no list of tricks to change our hearts and our energies…  Speaking for myself, of course.  Could be for you…being told to “get over it,” “think positive,” and “Dr. L. on the radio telling you to grow up and do what she–as a descended goddess of all that is ‘right’…maybe that  works for you.  Naaah….

You’ve read this far, so you’re trying along with me.  You’re trying to better understand and learn to manage anxiety. 

“Which is more important?  The world of facts, the world you can touch?  Or the world you are making up to fit your fears?  The world you are responding to?”

Come along….Next we take a look at how we’ve put our own little worlds together….

The goal?  To sing like the world and all the angels are listening.  Nothing less.  I will settle for nothing less.  Yes…I’m going crazy.  Care to join me?  The music’s terrific. 

Note: For those of you still wondering, I haven’t forgotten I still owe a Mexico confession of utter Emotional Guidance System idiocy. 

 

 

 

How much of our lives do we spend doing things we don’t want (or need) to do because we say, “Yes” when we meant “No?”   I’m not talking about the things we do that make us uncomfortable, but are the ” right” things, such as family activities or the temptation we humans have to want to give up when we “feel” defeated, and claim we didn’t really choose the goals we’ve set for ourselves.  I’m talking about all the many opportunities when we know our participation is not necessary, but we say ”Yes” to escape the anxiety arousedwith displeasing another person…who by definition…can do without our contribution. 

And, you are never safe.  Never.  When you least expect it, someone else.. whose super-powers are hidden under the disguise of a being a “helper” will recognize your weakness and pounce… taking control of your feelings and your life with the skill of the ’Body Snatchers’.  Helpers.  Yeah, right.  

One of these “helpers” attacked me minutes ago.  She forced me to carry items she knew I couldn’t manage, and almost got me killed in a car accident….Okay, maybe not killed, but I did veer over onto the shoulder at the height of the action.  Also, the scene on the front seat was prit-tee messy.

I believe it is my duty to warn you about this woman.  There I was, all gears running with my Best Thinking in charge, my Emotional Guidance System on the back burner, at about 9:45 PM in Dallas picking up supper at Eatzi’’s to take to my Dallas Hilton branch headquarters.  Okay, just  to cover my bases.  Just maybe… when I had them box up five huge shrimp ($39,99 a pound), my Emotional Guidance System had a bit of influence. 

Back to the Dragon Lady.  She appeared from nowhere, a small woman really.  She was just there in front of me as I exited with her chef’’s desert tray locked and loaded. The Body Snatcher disguised as a chef  offers me a giant chocolate-covered strawberry or perhaps, a whipped cream-loaded mini tart with a strawberry, blueberries and fresh pineapple.  I say, quite nicely and sincerly as I’m  not really big on sweets, and I had my sidesaddle loaded down with shrimp,  ”No, thanks.”  You’d think  a person could see I wasn’t in the market and move on, but she didn’t.  Which only makes the resulting shoulder-veering incident more obviously the responsibility of this demon-disguised-as-helper person. 

You see, she kept on with level two presure…guilt. ”If you don’t take them, we’ll just throw them away.”  What could I do?  I took not one but three, thinking, oh well, I’ll say “yes” to escape the immediate anxiey, then throw them in the trash on my way out.  Did I mention these treats were on flimsy lacy things….maybe what happened is the responsibility of whoever made those lacy doily things…

I head of Eatzi’s for the car balancing the shrimp, two kinds of sauce, a container of coleslaw and now three gooey treats not in containers.  I reach the first trash can….I look back.  The Dragon Lady isn’t watching, but there are several peolple sitting at the outdoor table who saw me accept the goodies.  No way I can throw them away now.  After all,  what kind of person will these Total Strangers  think I am?

Thus I climb in, settle the seafood shotgun and the treats on the dash, handy to throw out when I reach hotel across the street.  Which would have worked maybe,  if they hadn’t started to slide when a car pulled out in front  of me, and I had’t jerked the wheel in a  fruitless attempt atpreveningt the treats sliding onto the seat and the floor.

Who is responsible for this debacle?  Eatzi’s.  They shouldn’t make more items than they can sell each day.  The Dragon Lady.  She should have picked up on my “not a sweets person” vibe and left me alone.  The people sitting at the table outside .  If they hadn’t so obviosly been judging me, I could have rid myself of the problem.  The guy who pulled out of the drive onto the road.  Well, that’s just obvious.  He knew it was me and that I was in a precarious situation,  but decided to pull out in front of me to show his disrespect. 

Me?  Nada….  I’m a victim.  What’s that you say?….I had a choice?  That I could have said “No” and the chef lady would probably gotten over it? 

Oh.  I know I only gave two elements of the Triple Blame Whammy.  Three’s coming.

The more you take personally, the tougher life you’re going to have. 

From an article in one of the many free magazines that come to my office. (Why is it my little practice gets fifteen to twenty free mags a month and all I find in my doc’s offices are vintage Field and Stream and Parents’ Weekly?):

 ”I wish people would stop saying ‘God bless you’ when I sneeze…”  Complaintant goes on to rant about how distressed he is that when he sneezes people he doesn’t even know foul his private space and push their version of religion on him. 

What?

“Which is more important?  The world you can actually touch?  Or the world (full of rude, intrusive, mean religion-force-feeders) you are responding to?”

Now I’m pretty twitchy and quick to expect criticism.  (Especially from those ladies in lab coats at the cosmetic counters.  They see right into me and know about every night I’ve landed in bed without a thought to taking off make-up, which would be would every night).

But, demanding that all the people in the world stop trying to be kind?  Does he really think people ignoring other people is a swell way to go?  Does he really think that when a stranger takes the time out of their day to say “God bless you” their plan is to invade…  This has to be a terrible way to live  if allergies where he lives are anything like they are here.  Maybe this guy should stay in his house or wear a sign, “In case I sneeze, do not say ‘God bless you’.”  That probably won’t work though, because, what are the odds that the same people who see your INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO LIVE their lives will be the same people on the other side of the cereal aisle when that sneeze comes on?  Not too good.

I mean, I can go through the cosmetic department at warp speed with my eyes slotted straight ahead like I’m late for an appointment inside the mall.  But, you can’t time a sneeze like that.  Could happen anywhere, anytime…poof, the guy’s invaded by rude people. 

Oh well.  I’m reminded of a long ago woman who, like the rest of of us, was experiencing major pre-Christmas stress. On this particular day she lamented how she dreaded going to her mother-in-law’s for Christmas because Grandmother always went so overboard buying presents for the children.  “What kind of values are the kids learning?”  (This, save the character of the poor children argument is commonly used to justify what we want. Apparently, if we don’t stop relatives from being themselves, our children will all end up in prison.)  “She’s just ridiculous with the gifts,” she said.

“That’s it?” I asked.  “Grandma’s too generous and must be stopped?  That’s all you got?”

She smiled.

Dateline: San Diego Mission Valley Hilton Branch National World Headquarters.  Update on management of self-inflicted flight stress: minimal peanut delivery anxiety; mildly distracting doo-looping irritation with the man in the seat in front of me who thought just because his seat was adjustable, he was free to spend three hours crushing the book I was reading. Eight Hertz courtesy buses passed while I waited on the sidewalk for an Avis bus.  Potential personal insults from possible less-than-perfect television, still to be determined.

Okay.  To continue thinking about how we get ourselves in trouble with our human need to tell other people what to do…  “Helping” is sometimes nothing more than our effort to get rid of our own anxiety.  Anxiety is our physical and automatic response to real or perceived threat. 

One pretty useless, but highly seductive method of dealing with anxiety that pops up around another person’s behavior…is to try to change their behavior.  Of course, we do not admit that we are trying to change their behavior so that we can calm down—it doesn’t even seem to us that we could possibily be doing that.  The way we see it, we are only trying to help the other person to change because our way is better.  Because once they’ve changed they’ll agree.  Probably even be grateful and see us as really cool and smart.

Thus, when we make a royal pain of ourselves trying to change another person…No matter how bloody annoyed the person we are “helping” becomes…we can rock back on our heels and humbly say, “Gee, I was only trying to help.” 

And maybe we were.  But “helping,” particularly when our efforts are unsolicited (see Obsessed Stranger Lady and the Chicken Noodle Incident), is a tricky proposition. 

When are we “trying to help” and when are we merely “uncomfortable” with the behavior of another person and wanting them to change to keep us calm? 

Picture that you have two lists.  On one, you list the behaviors of the people around you that you wish were changed, but do not directly affect you.  Next make a list of the behaviors of other people that you wish were different, and that do have a direct affect on your life experience.

When your partner breaks the agreement the two of you have on spending, the behavior affects you directly; when your partner spends agreed upon leisure money in activities or on items you do not value—those are behaviors that do not affect you directly.

Okay…Right away, we have a problem.  Highly reactive people will claim that everything anyone does that they become aware of in person or from other sources, directly affects them.  And, before you jump to “Oh but that’s not me,” remember we’re all highly reactive some of the time.  It’s wired in to being human.

So, why is it so hard to let other people be?  Our faithful Emotional Guidance Systems.  The EGS is threatened easily and sends us into unattractive spins.  Our Emotional Guidance Systems scream:  “You SHOULDN’T be (drive, cook, eat, read, choose a husband, think, worship, email, talk, call, answer, vote, dress, spend money, etc.) the way you are!”  “The way you do (all those things) is terrible and awful and MUST be changed.”  “I can’t stand for you to continue (all those things) the way you do!”

It is quite exhausting going through the world in high threat, continuous evaluation mode.  The pay’s not too good either.

“Helping” others to slow our own anxiety is quite popular and will be the topic of the next several posts.