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……….

Conclusion of United Flight 6960 from Chicago to Columbia, South Carolina.  Parts 1 and 2 immediately precede this tale of unusual punishment.  

Whoa.  Finishing up my tale of woe is going to be a bit more difficult than I’d planned.  I’m now in my Hilton branch office the next day.  I have the television on the History Channel…and, right there, splattered all over the big flat screen is a re-enactment of the Battle of Valley Forge.  At the moment, three emaciated soldiers, their frozen bare feet wrapped in rags, their eyes blank from pain and starvation…are sitting against a tree.  “Only the bravest, most loyal men stayed the winter,” the kind-voiced narrator explains.  “The weaker men long ago ran away in the night.  Those with wounds died horrible deaths, gangrene taking over their legs, inch by inch. The rest…too weak to break the frozen ground, can do no more than drag their comrades’ bodies a few yards into the woods to be devoured by animals in the night.”

Even the boney scavenger wolves competing over the gangrene ridden dead soldiers are starving.  This makes it really hard to complain about the meal I finally secured once I reached Columbia, South Carolina.  Really hard, but not impossible. I hesitate to continue….Much can be said for ignorance. …and whining is so unattractive…BUT, as I was saying…

Eventually, a guy in a blue jumpsuit delivered paperwork to United 696o on the tarmac at Chicago O’Hare  Airport.  Our plane is backing away from the gate–which you’d be thinking is a good thing. But aha!  Leaving the gate is only a delaying ploy…sort of a decoy move to keep passengers in the delusion that something is happening.  I glance over my shoulder to soak in Army Arnold’s admiration at how I’d called the situation perfectly.  How the guy in the jumpsuit delivered the needed paperwork.  In sort of in a long JIFF.  My Army pals and I sigh with relief.  It’s been fun getting to know each other…but all that was over…time to get back to our separate lives….Army Arnold and pal land cots at Ft. Jackson and I slide between cool sheets at the branch Hilton.

Army Arnold, hanging on to our relationship, punches the back of my seat asking if it is safe to fly in a blizzard such as the one outside his window?   Further flaunting my extensive flying experience and all-around travelling cool, I related several air travel stories for Arnold’s amusement.  He said he envied how I was so relaxed, so able to go with the flow.  “Oh, I dunno,” I say, “I’ve learned to take these little changes in stride.”

Once we’re in line for take-off, Arnold remarks at the number of planes ahead of us and I throw out some random number that I claim is the number of planes O’Hare handles every day. …Now our plane initiates a slow left turn out of line.  “I knew it!  Something’s wrong with the plane!” says Arnold.

Denial Danny, designated flight attendant, is already digging in his bag of fabulous free treats.  This is not good.  Pilot Positive Pete comes on the intercom:  “Well, folks, because we had to wait for the paperwork…well, enough time passed for ice to collect on the plane.  (Arnold gasps and punches the back of my seat.)  So, ladies and gentlemen, we’re now returning to the gate to have the wings de-iced.”

The plane goes a few yards and stops in a cross track.  Positive Pete amends his promise: “Actually, we cannot head into a gate to get in the line to be de-iced….We cannot locate an open gate, so we are now in in line to get a gate,  where we will get in line to be de-iced, then will return to get in line to take off.

Tick…tick.  We begin hour three on the plane.  

My Emotional Guidance System is going berserk, screaming:  This is horrible!  I can’t take this!  However, since I have Army Arnold behind me saying out loud what I am thinking, I must not crack, I must continue to feign sophistication and self-control.  Next to Army Arnold’s genuine terror of flying…if I were to unleash my relentless bitching over my inconvenience….Well, I’d look a bit petty.

Thus, I am repeating 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….While the changes in my plans are unfortunate, uncomfortable, and incon….”

Okay.  We’re in a gate, in line for de-icing. Denial Danny unleashes the beverage cart.  Not good. We aren’t going to be airborne in any hurry.  Army Arnold is asking his buddy if it’s true that if you’re in the military you can order alcohol on planes?  As Danny hands Arnold his Coke (full can, definite bad sign), Arnold asks Denial Dan if the pilot has ever flown in a snowstorm before.  After beverage service is complete, Danny is back to pushing ‘free’ pretzels.

6960 is now almost four hours old.  The Army boys aren’t going to make Ft. Jackson by midnight, but I should be under those comfy covers by then.  Because now the craned de-icer equipment is spraying us down.  The plane swaying like a baloon as the de-icer pressure spaxxrer sweeps along, ArmyArnold is starting to babble about how maybe he should have gone to college first, but he needs the Army money to go, but maybe college isn’t that important…..

“Alright!” Positive Pete exclaims as if we’d just safely swung across the Grand Canyon on a rope.  “De-icing is complete. We are ON OUR WAY, ladies and gentleman.”

You’d think the words…ON OUR WAY would indicate imminent movement.  But no.  We sit, tray tables in upright and locked positions. Denial Danny pops into the aisle with his plastic goody bag informing us that silly old Positive Pete meant that we were now waiting for a runway assignment. As he passes my row, D. Danny warns he only has two ‘free’ granola bars left.  I pretend I can’t hear him.  A move I shall deeply regret.  (Note eventual menu for the evening.)

Snow swirls outside.  Army Arnold pushes his knee into the now familiar dent in the back of my seat.  I turn around.  Nothing to worry about, time-wise, I say. Because we’re already late, traffic control is probably waiting to give us a good spot, I said, because I’m so cool and know everything.  Arnold squints at me.  “It’s snowing,” he says. “We never had snow in California…I should have taken the bus the whole way.”  He drains his Coke.

Tick…tick…tick…an hour passes since Pete’s jolly send-off. “While the changes in my plans….are unfortunate, inconvenient…”  Denial Danny comes by and asks me if I need anything.  From his expression I’m pretty sure that uncontrollable, self-destructive part of me that takes over when I’m pulled over for a speeding ticket…has now taken charge of my relationship with D. Danny.  Now that my true self had slipped out, like the many lawmen before him, Danny isn’t going to be cutting me a break.

Tick…tick…tick… Then Petey said, “Oops! Sorry about this ladies and gentlemen, but we’ve waited so long here in line to get in line that we’ve iced up again. We’re going back to get in line for the de-icer.”  He keeps making statements like the one above as if we were supposed to be thrilled.  An hour later the de-icer returns.  Tick…tick.  “Oh happy Day!” the de-icer runs out of anti-freeze.  We get de-iced.  We wait to get in line for take off. We are into hour six.  Six. Army Arnold is asking me stories about my childhood the way people do in movies where the players all know they are going to die. 

Tick…tick.  Take-offs currently suspended due to visibility. Denial Dan doesn’t come around much any more. He did take a bathroom break in the rear luxury spa, but he blew by me so fast I wasn’t able to stick my foot out in the aisle.

But, get this…this is the best part….It is now 3:15 in the morning.  We take off….and here it is…wait for it….Denial Danny picks up his mike and ACTUALLY SAYS…”We at United want to take this opportunity to thank you for choosing United Airlines and PERSONALLY extend an invitation for you to join the United Frequent Flyer Program….Just fill out the brochure you can find in the seat pocket in front of you….

 Oh, and the final menu on reaching my destination….to be revealed in next post.  Not a picture post.  No one should have to see what I stuck my plastic fork into that early morn…with dreams of granola bars in my head.

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.

Living Now:  the Power Hose Incident Revisited

What would it take to get you to relax…Now?  What if…this is as good as it gets?

Dateline:  Second story veranda in Texas.  I am in my underwear power-hosing the doggie run…to be sure you have the full picture …see “How to Ruin a Relationship, the Power Hose Incident.”

In my right hand is the power hose.  In my left is a broom.  I am alternating hose spraying and broom pushing water off the edge and I soap and rinse the outdoor carpet.  I am doing my best to hurry, to get the job over.  This isn’t fun.  My arms ache.  Water keeps oozing back toward the wall.  I’m a bit peeved at the whole concept of spending a piece of my life hosing and sweeping…hosing and sweeping…hosing and sweeping.

Which is when a dangerous thought occurred to me….a thought which will change your life…if you ‘get’ it.  It’s a biggie…a toughie…but we can try this together.  In several sections.

What occurred to me was this question:  “Would I be ‘doing’ the job of hosing and sweeping differently if I were being paid for the job?”

Which led to the thought:  “How would my experience of hosing and sweeping be different if I were being paid by the HOUR to do the job?”   That is, I had to out on the veranda hosing and sweeping for a preset number of hours.  How would my internal experience be different if I wasn’t trying so hard to ‘get finished’?

I slowed down.  I stopped pushing the broom as hard and fast.  I danced in long, sweeping movements.  I slipped into a few stanzas of Delta Dawn….I noticed the beyond the balcony.  Corny, I know.  But, that’s what happened.  “Del-ta-uh Dawn…What’s that flower you have on?…”

Which is when I asked myself, “How would my life experience be different… if when my lifetime was assigned to me, God had looked at me and said, “You do realize you have been given an hourly job…that there’s nothing you need to finish?”

“People round Brownsville says she’s crazy…”

One hot day a man is walking along a narrow mountain trail with steep sides dropping off hundreds of feet into the canyon below.  At one point, the man steps into some loose gravel at the edge of the trail and slips off the path.  (Work with me here.  Think of Nepal…fog.) 

The poor man is destined to plummet to his death.  And, yet, just as he begins his descent, several yards from the top surface…the man notices a thin branch sticking out from the wall of rock.  He grabs hold of the branch and ‘whew’ holds on for his life.  But all is not well for long.  The branch has only weak, spiny roots, which are quickly loosening from the wall. 

His time on earth is definitely brief.  For a moment, the blather of his panicked Emotional Guidance System dominates his life experience screaming:  “This is horrible!  This is terrible!  I can’t stand this!”

Then, at the moment of his greatest soul-gripping horror, the man notices a wild strawberry plant growing out of the wall next to the slipping roots of his lifeline branch.  The strawberry plant offers nothing in terms of a hold.  So what possible use is a stupid plant?  The man’s brain is going wild.  “This is horrible!  This is terrible!  I can’t stand this!  What good is a stupid plant if it won’t help me in my life?  What good is a strawberry plant if it can’t help me live longer?” 

The man’s mind clearsfor a fraction of a second.  He iss able to set aside his desperate demand to live forever or even longer.  The man realizes all any man or woman has is the present moment.  He becomes accutely aware that, though he is clinging to a brief …and getting briefer…lifeline, his life now…is no different from the life possessed by any man or woman.

His mind quiets and with his sudden clarity, the man notices that…on the strawberry plant are several plump red berries.  He glanced up at the branch which is now barely a sputtering string.  He glances down.  No question, within minutes, maybe seconds, he will be a lifeless body on the canyon floor.  Above him is the past he so longs to continue and improve upon.  Below him is the sure future he feared and dreaded.

Then, he noticed how red, and full, and perfectly ripe the berries were on the plant in front of his face.  Okay, then…he decided.  He CHOSE then to focus on the strawberry plant.  The man dared to loosen his grip on the branch long enough to pluck one of the fruits.  He popped the strawberry in his mouth.  The flavor took over his mind…his life experience. The strawberry was sweet and tart and wonderful.  Wonderful.

Yes. It’s official. We’ve gone around some kind of bend as the American television-watching public. I just saw a very thin woman explain how she lost weight by getting her treats at the Taco Bell drive through. I really did. I verify this statement because I’m aware there’s a television public that never goes near the sorts shows I have running…I respect you, but, I gotta let you know what kind of trash is out there….
Taco Bell…hmmm…This is the same company that had a campaign last year which said, “Late night snack? Don’t think of it as a snack, think of it as a fourth meal!”….Now that’s what America needs….a fourth meal.

Big plans for 2010, and you guys are invited on the journey toward actual personal change. I’m thinking a two-pronged effort toward reducing my Emotional Guidance System’s judging of other people and my Emotional Guidance System’s way of always jumping to the worst conclusions when plans go awry.

I know. Huge. But…before I let go of the judgmental habit…You shall hear of the Rude Woman in Seat 20B on the flight from DFW to Cabo San Lucas…I promise you, you aren’t going to believe her.
….

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.

T-Shirt caption: If you can’t be happy in life, can you at least work on making it less miserable for the rest of us?

One way you can tell you are making decisions based on baloney from your Emotional Guidance System is…when…with each step of the process, the bleeding gets worse.

One of the features of being crazy humans is that we do not always…maybe even ‘usually’ do what makes sense.   Instead we do something familiar or handy.  I’ve been particularly amazed at our consistency in thinking negative or fearful thoughts… and  when the first negative doesn’t destroy us…we repeat the procedure…until we’re somewhere below the dumps.

We also have this need to tell other people negative things (opinions) about them or people they care about…and when the first piece of information isn’t convincing…we lay on another…and another.  (This is particularly true when talking politics.)

So, as you read about the man below…think of your negative thoughts or statements as big ole long construcktion nails. 

Okay, now I’m not absolutely sure of the exact story, but I did hear this one on the radio (which means it’s true, right?).  The man in the story gives us an excellent lesson on one way to know when we are making a decision using our Emotional Guidance System. 

The story stars a construction worker who was having a pretty good day… until he slipped with the band saw and cut his hand off at the wrist.  Seeing the horror of his stump spraying blood in all directions…our construction worker could see no way to go on with life and decided to kill himself …now…He looked around and spotted a nail gun.  Two inch nails driven into the body in essential places could do it…He picked up the nail gun and fired one into his forehead…but he didn’t die.  He fired a second nail into his forehead.  Damn.  That shot didn’t end his consciousness.  What to do?  What to do? 

What else?  If at first you don’t succeed….He fired a nail into the side of his head…and then two.  Then one on the other side of his head…then two.  Our hero fired a total of twelve nails into his head before he lost conciousness.  But he didn’t die.  He woke up after surgery, his hand sewed on, his head nails removed.  I suspect his family will never let him forget…oh, the cruel nicknames…

Talk about the Emotional Guidance System running the show…Did it not occur to the man after, say, the eighth nail….that, just maybe, his chosen method of suicide had shortcomings?

Think of focusing on fears and reminding others of their weak suits…as you with the nail gun in your hand…the method doesn’t work…and is really messy.

Mysteryshrink’s You-Get-What-You-Pay-For Psychological Tip:  Comparing yourself to wildlife can provide excellent excuses for your bizarre behavior.  In general people feel possitively about the creatures of the forests and the trees…here’s how you can cash in.

Now, the wildlife comparison technique works best if you have already informed people, that, indeed you are nuts.  As a refresher, the rest of your life will go much more pleasantly if you will cease and desist from further defending yourself as a sane person.  Let it go.

When someone says–

What’s wrong wrong with you?  Why do you do it that way?  How could you think like that?  How could you possibly have made the same mistake eight times?

Squench your face into a ‘very puzzled’ expression and answer:  “Because…I think I’ve figured it out…it’s because I’m crazy and I’m getting worse!”

Comparing yourself to wildlife works in all sorts of situations.  When you show up late to an event, you can say:  At least I’m not a middle-aged Schnauzer.  Did you know they sleep twenty hous  a day?  At least I’m not sea slug.  Did you know they can impreganate themselves?  At least I’m not river rat. Did you know they can get up to twenty pounds? 

Now, about the chipmunks.  (This part about chipmunks is factual, the above is just wild guesses, but facts matter so little when you’re defending yourself.)  Chipmunks bury nuts all the time in all sorts of places. However, their memories are only good for three days.  Lucky for the chipmunks, many tend to live in the same areas.  Thus, many of the nuts the chipmunk finds and eats were left by other chipmunks who’d forgotten where they’d buried them… just as  the feasting chipmunk’’s poorly remembered efforts were providing forgotten nuts for others.  Pretty neat system, eh?

Now to the most recent opportunigy for comparing self to wildlife to distract from bizarre behavior.  I’ve been traveling a lot lately (this is my human-based excuse).  Last week, I was returning to town on a Wednesday, thus scheduled a slate of appointments for Thursday.  Groggy and achey, I woke up Thursday and steeled my body with an Excedrin triple-shot.  My special person wished me well as he left for his regular Wednesday bridge game.  After he left, I showered and dressed in what would have to pass for professional togs.

Then I realized that my special person had just left for his WEDNESDAY bridge game.  And, pow!  Right there in front of me was one of those bonus…I didn’t hide it…nuts!  I didn’t put the day aside, I didn’t sacrifice, I didn’t trade a nut for a nut.  I just stumbled on a free nut!

Decisions.  I’m doing several posts on decisions.  For starters, it helps in making decisions to know to how our Thinking Guidance System and our Emotional Guidance System are sharing in the duties.

Cut to Brett Farve.  Brett Farve didn’t do anything the rest of us haven’t.  So why am I having such a tough time getting past that retirement speech?  For those of you who still watch the regular news…Brett Farve is that quaterback for the Minnesota Vikings who turned 40 this weekend.  Before quarterbacking for the Vikings he was the many-times-over award winning quarterback for the Green Bay Packers.  In between was a one year run with the NY Jets.

Brett Farve who still looks good in Wranglers and he’s the football player…none of non-Wisconsin people knew all that well…until that speech.

What did Brett say?  Here’s an excerpt:  

“I’ve given everything I possibly can give to this organization, to the game of football, and I don’t think I’ve got anything left to give, and that’s it. I know I can play, but I don’t think I want to. And that’s really what it comes down to. Fishing for different answers and what ifs and will he come back and things like that, what matters is it’s been a great career for me, and it’s over. As hard as that is for me to say, it’s over.”

No big deal,a man retires from a sport and the world pays way too much attention (according to people who still watch the regular news).  But Brett didn’t just retire…he took a bunch of us immature….see it and fuse with it people…down with him.  Brett cried.  To quote a president whose Emotional Guidance System driven decision in the Oval office is the one act most remembered by the general public….I felt Brett’s pain.

I lamented his decision, I was awed by his courage, I re-thought my hard-line refusal to consider moving to Milwaukee with that first great offer with the University of Wisconsin when I was first out of graduate school…

I’m not proud of this…Since people whose level of functioning has some gaps (all of us) are more likely to lose their boundaries and take on the other person’s feelings as if the feelings are their own…and therefore get stuck twisting ourselves into pretzels trying to fix THEIR feelings.  We are driven to fix them, to fix ourselve.

Okay, back to Brett…and the sad truth about taking on other people’s feelings.  You see, I believed Brett.  I invested in what he was saying. 

…And…Brett came back the next year to play with the Jets….and the next year with the Vikings…So, Brett, what am supposed to do with my feelings?  

When we take on other person’s  feelings, we get  over-invested in the future choices that person makes…as if he or she owes us.  

As for  Brett, in reading his bio, I see that he married his girlfriend after 12 years of courtship.  And the world was surprised when he reversed his retirement?

How much trouble can a person get into by speaking ‘off the top of his head’ to a televsion reporter?

Doesn’t talking  ’off the top of your head’  boil down to simply blithering random words as they pop into consciousness?  Yes, ‘off the top of your head’ can, and often does mean, talking without using your head at all.  Using the Thinking Guidance System,you recall, means taking into acount the LONG TERM effects of your actions.

Which brings us to the ’Talkative Guy in Bicycle Shorts Incident’

A few weeks ago, a husband, obviously in the grip of his Emotional Guidance System…shot and killed his wife while she was packing up to leave him.  Now, the actions of the murderer guy aren’t even the actions we’re talking about, but admittedly a good example of not taking LONG TERM effects into consideration. 

But, jump ahead, if you will, to the reporter for a local television station who travelled to the small town outside Austin where the murder happened to provide that ‘on the spot’ illusion for the five o’clock story.

The little town hosting the murder is a rural haven left over from when the railroad first came through that part of Texas, though a few Austinites have moved to Red Rock to fulfill dreams of pastoral peace and to ride their bike instead of burning fossil fuels like the lesser forms of humanity. But, mostly Red Rock is a ranching and agricultural enclave.  Our lively television reporter arrives in Red Rock ready to take the pulse of the townspeople. 

Most of the town’s residents were busy with target practice, baking pies, and herding longhorns, but our reporter did find one unoccupied Red Rock resident who happened to be one of the Austin-transplants, a spry fellow riding his bike.  Somehow the reporter didn’t notice that Red Rock regular residents don’t ride ten-speeds and they certainly don’t wear flashy bicycle pants and bodysuit tops…or red and green banana helmets or earrings, or scraggly beards.  

Our reporter has the camera going and needed just the one clip to go with his story of the murder.  Thus, his brief interview of the guy in bicycle shorts (GIBS)  would come and go in his life without causing undo harm.  The guy in the bicycle shorts, I fear, was not so lucky.

Because, you see, when the reporter asked the GIBS, “Do you find it hard to believe that a murder like this could happen in such a pleasant little town?”

The grinning GIBS looks right into the camera and says,  “Not really.  This town is full of POT-BELLIED, KNUCKLE-DRAGGING REDNECKS.”

Did I mention he LIVED in amongst the people he just so colorfully described?  Or, at least he did.

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….

Now just about any time a guy bungees off the Rio Grande Bridge in New Mexico…I’ve got to figure his Emotional Guidance System had something to do with that decision.  I can think of no fact-based reason to make such a jump and I can think of about a million fact-based reasons making such a jump is a really bad idea.

One of which is what happened to the guy in the tape I just watched.  The guy that jumped off the bridge….and ever-so-slightly miscalculated the distance from the bridge to the rocks.  Turns out the drop was about twenty feet less than figured…not that you’d expect two guys into this sort of thing to be math geniuses.

So, yes, John, the buddy taping the jump is heard saying something like this, “And there goes Andy!  What a thrill! What a leap!  You da man!……..Oh, God….I just watched Andy die.”  Pan to a blob of jeans and orange jacket on the rocks below.  (Now, I don’t know how you are with your friends, but I have to say…I’m a little troubled that buddy John continues the taping and the play-by-play.)

Later, John is videotaping his bud, Andy, this time from his hospital bed.  John says, “I knew I shouldn’t jump that day, I knew something wasn’t right (so far, we still have the Thinking Guidance System trying to stay in charge)….but then, (here’s where the Emotional Guidance System adds its two cents)…but then…it’s just that we’d driven all that way to get there and everything…”

The point here is that when we decide to do something or to keep doing something just because we’re so far in we don’t want to admit that all the effort thus far has been for naught…that’s our Emotional Guidance System blabbing and blabbing.  Which is how I explain ending up in this hideously over-crowded, over-priced restaurant in some tiny Colorado town over a hundred miles from where I intended to stop for lunch.  I’d driven north from Denver thinking (?) I’d find just what I had in mind…a lodge-looking mountain kind of place with excellent steaks and college football on at least two screens…on the outskirts of the city.

When I didn’t find the lodge/sports bar on the outskirts, I thought…I should turn around because I very hungry…but then saw the sign for Boulder…I thought what the heck…For sure, there’ll be a lodge/sports bar in Boulder…When I didn’t, I thought, I should turn around because I’m starting to get faint with hunger…which made me crave that steak even more….

And, there was the sign pointing to Estes Park which is on the edge of the Rocky Mountain National Park…There’s got to be a lodge/sports bar in Estes Park…what the heck, what’s another thirty-five miles….Of course, I hadn’t factored in the car hauling the double trailer about twenty cars ahead of me that never went over 18 miles per hour.

Thus weak and shaking I arrive in Estes Park….to discover that the place is over-run with tourists in town for Octoberfest (Yes, I noticed it was still September, too.)…I thought, hey, I should just cut my losses, chew another stick of gum and go back to Boulder or even Denver…then I thought “it’s just that I’d driven all that way…” and here I am a hundred miles from my hotel eating corn dogs standing up…

The point:  When you realize you aren’t absolutely sure your bungee cord is shorter than the distance to the rocks, settle for any ole café on the way out of town.

Can AVOIDANCE sometimes be a mistake, even when… factually…every attempt has ended in disaster?

Yes.  Now, I’m not talking about the street tacos in Mexico City or risking your life and endangering the lives of others by continuing to take shots at sliding all-lovely off the ski lift chair… those activities we can do without rather easily.  (See previous post on dangers of tacos and chair lifts.)

But… what about when we are telling ourselves we CANNOT ever succeed at an activity and, though we’ve had many painful failures… we’d really like the rewards of that activity? And, when we calm the heck down…the truth is…other people have done it,so it’s possible.  Again, I’m voting against taking another shot at that ski lift chair death trap.  I know other people hop off the lift bench looking like the coolest people alive… and I even accept that, theoretically, given a long life and all winters devoted to the ski lift chair, I, too, could be successful.

To accomplish even complex tasks, all that usually stands between us and success is a little bit of information and the capacity to manage our anxiety through the “I don’t know how to do this” freakout. Now, I’m not suggesting you attempt to fly the plane on your next trip….you COULD…the only thing holding you back is a lack of information….a lack of a really big chunk of information.

But, to return to a task closer to home that has blackened my days, met with unrelenting failure, and yet…I’d really like to be successful.  Oh, yeah.  I’m talking about my pathetic efforts at website building. I really want to build a website.  I’m not done yet.

First, a simpler example of someone coming to the conclusion that a task is impossible due to lack of simple information.

One summer day when my parents were out of the country, they called back from a remote phone in the Alps asking to have certain information located in a file cabinet inside their house faxed to a cruise line address. Usually, this task would be mine.  However, on this fine summer day…defined in Texas as over a hundred degrees and real sweaty…I was unavailable.  Thus, my special person was up to fulfill the request.  Knowing I’d let myself into their house many times, he first spent twenty minutes going through extra keys.  He picked out a dozen possibles from the pounds of keys in the miscellaneous drawer… and headed for the country.

He spent his first thirty minutes and first bucket of perspiration trying each key in the front door lock without success.  Testing for a possible unlocked window led under walls of English ivy growing in layers since the 1950s.  Now he couldn’t breathe and suspected the allergy attack later on would set a new coughing record. He visited the surrounding six houses hoping a neighbor had a key, only to learn that the lady across the street and the couple on one side of the house were still holding grudges regarding certain high school yard decorating mistakes I hadn’t shared with him. Exhausted and out of ideas, he gave up.  He can’t get in.  He’d call a locksmith if his presence in the family photos taken on the lawn… he’d bring along in the morning would be enough proof to that he had the right to enter the house.

When I strolled in later that night, a day earlier than expected, my special person related his afternoon of woe ending with, “I’m glad you’re here since you know where there’s a key that works.”

“Oh, no…” I say.  “I don’t have a key or know where one is.  I just take a screwdriver and ooch back the little dealie, and wha-la, I’m in.”

Today someone gave me the web address of a do-it-yourself website maker “that anyone can do”….and for once…I couldn’t prove them wrong.

What activities have you given up… when all you needed was the right information? And the capacity to manage anxietythrough the learning curve?

So, I’m in Dubuque, Iowa (Full post on what incredible places and people are in Dubuque, Iowa and Galena, Illinois…thanks for coming out.)
….But, anyway. My plan was to satisfy the fears of my Emotional Guidance System (”Oh, God, what if they can see right through you and know that you don’t know everything?”) by being very cool. Suave, even.

This morning, I’m packing my boxes of books and my computer on one of those valet carts for the haul down to the car. #@%# box of books falls off starting a cascade topped off by my computer and about a hundred postcards. I’m “expressing myself” as a spiffed up couple in tennis togs makes their way around me and my mess. The wife looks deftly down her nose and says, “I wouldn’t complain, lady. You’re just lucky you have a job!”

Dateline:  Dallas Hilton Branch Office.  Giant flat-screen television.  Antique remote.  The Sleep Timer can be set by using manual controls.  Whew.  It’s not easy being a walking Emotional Guidance System patsy.

Which is more important?   The world of facts?  Or, the world you are responding to?”

How much of what you are talking so assuredly about….is just made up?   Our Thinking Guidance System would have us get the facts…before we act…but who has time for that?

So we respond to people AS IF they are the people, the characters, we’ve made up.  If we expect them to be kind, we’ll get that.  If we believe he or she is a CONTROL FREAK will we encounter a lot of pushy interfering behavior.

The “Knock Knock Incident”

The scene is the waiting area for those of us needing to have lab work done at a large medical facility.  About thirty of us wait, people coming in and out in this busy area.  There is a unisex bathroom off  to the side which is quite popular.  As the lab is near the hospital exit, some people notice the bathroom on leaving and opt to take advantage. The people come, they leave their blood, the people go. 

One fella decides on the bathroom option on his way out of the hospital and asks his wife to wait.  She has a seat and picks up a magazine.  The man closes the door.  Another man soon spots the bathroom on his way out and tries the door, which is locked, of course.  He shrugs and goes on with his day.  Then a women enters the waiting area on her way to other parts of the hospital.  She spies the bathroom, gives the door handle  an unsuccessful pull, and moves on.  A few minutes later a young woman in a T-shirt and shorts crosses the room and tries the door.

At the moment she twists the lever, the man inside happens to open the door.  He sneers at the lass and says, “What’s wrong with you?  Are you stupid?”
She stares blankly.  He says, “You must be stupid to have to try the door three times to figure out it was occupied!”  Girl looks stunned.  “Abused” man and wife walk out talking about how kids today have been ruined by cell phones and texting.

What if . . . when you die . . . there is an afterlife and that afterlife is this:  You live your same life over…exactly…

Except, instead of living events sequentially….have insomnia, shut off the alarm, get up, go to the kitchen, take out an apple because today’s the day you change how you eat, grab a piece of cold pizza because you just don’t have the energy to deprive yourself today, kiss your spouse, stub your toe on the dog dish, back out of the drive way hitting the garbage can, hit the steering wheel, look down and see that you’re late already….

However….in this afterlife….you live the same life…but each separate activity, no matter how brief.. .is lumped together.  Yep.  In this afterlife, you are talking yourself into climbing out of bed for two years, stubbing your toe for a week, you’re making dentist appointments for six hours, eating birthday cake for two hours, trying to decide whether you should give low-carbohydrate eating another try for a year….four months you spend driving around lost….two months saying you are not lost….six years worrying about thing that didn’t happen….a year with a cold….

And so it goes.  This notion is not my idea but comes from Sum by Dr. David Eagleman in whose audience I was privileged to be a couple of weeks ago.  Dr. Eagleman, a neuroscientist and Head of the Neuroscience Lab at Baylor Medicine, started his book as a way of considering afterlife possibilities but ended up with a wonderful set of forty possibilities that have the effect of directing his readers–not so much to think about afterlife–but about life.

Take a minute.  What if you knew that your afterlife would be everything over in lumps?  Would you choose your life moments more carefully? 

Would you learn to say “No” to the painful, time-robbing, ineffective strategies of your Emotional Guidance System? 

The “what ifs”…” the self torture… the bad decisions serving no purpose except to shake off anxiety?

I don’t have the big answers yet.  But I picked up a few hints from “Lockup/Raw” in the wee hours this morning.  For now, it’s enough to say I left Dr. Eagleman’s lecture a bit thoughtful. I went by Eatzi’s (incredible gormet take-out) which is my habit while bunked in my Hilton Branch Headquarters.  As I did every night, I headed straight for the cocktail shrimp.  Now the word cocktail is a bit miss leading.  These babies go for $39.99 a pound and a half-pound is four to five. I study the size of the shrimp….should I have four…which should be enough…or five…sheesh….what if that’s more than $20 bucks?  For a few shrimp?… Then I rememberd the possible afterlife….and ordered five. 

I didn’t want to spend another second than I already had in the bank under “time spent trying to decide between four or five shrimp.”