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Stop looking for the cosmic conspiracy…

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I’ve been having some of the most interestingly deep and philosophical discussions lately. I apologize if this isn’t really the blog you’ve been looking for… move along… move along, but some of the ponderings that have been pondered have really made me restructure my own approach to some things, and maybe let go of a few not so helpful and somewhat irrational beliefs (thank you Albert Ellis). So, now, I share with all of you. #SorryNotSorry.

One of my own personal pet peeves originates with occurrences throughout my life. It isn’t so much that people were deliberately trying to hurt me. In fact, I know that most people that make the statements I’m about to discuss mean it in the best possible way. The problem is that while it might comfort them to say these things, it can have devastating effects on the person to whom they are said. I am, of course, speaking of the generalized commentary that there is some benevolent overreaching plan that incorporates predestination and general lack of free choice in the outcomes of the universe.

I am absolutely not going to get into a discussion of religion and faith (except in a very marginal sense). However, if this sort of philosophical topic and questioning of grand plan offends, you might want to click away now. At various points in my life, I have had to face disappointment. It just happens. It’s part of living and the odds of general existence. Even the most sure of things occasionally doesn’t come through in the end. The luckiest of people sometimes brick it. That’s just life. There are some who believe that the failures in life are there to make us appreciate the successes. What was it Yogi Berra said “If the world were perfect… it wouldn’t be.” That’s the sort of assumption that states that humans don’t appreciate when they have it good, unless there is something bad to which it can be compared. To go with another quote, and one of my favorites, “What is light, without the darkness?”

I’m not sure if I go with that, but along the same lines are the people who will consistently tell you that the trials, obstacles, and general negative experiences of life are “tests.” For what, I want to know, because seriously…? I saw a meme one time that said “God only gives you what you are strong enough to take…” Um… so, I figure I should be benching Greyhound buses at this point…?  And if my life is going great? What? I’m not worth the effort to test and train? The one that bugs me the most, though is, “God has a different plan for you.” Yeah, I told you it might get marginally religious. I’m not going to get into whether deity exists, what He/She looks like, or if there is some pasta-related being that magically created the world in which we live. Everyone is entitled to their own belief system, and personally I think faith can be a powerful force of good for most people, helping shore them up in times of trouble or encouraging them to be the best version of themselves. Whether you believe there is God, gods, or none of the above is not really my point or my business.

The issue I have is that in the worst possible circumstances and in times of greatest disappointment or horrific trauma, people flip out the “There is a different plan for you…” Um… I don’t particularly care. My plan was just torpedoed like the Lusitania. My heart was broken from disappointment, and someone wants me to believe that there is a consciousness in the universe that deliberately did that because my wishes weren’t in their plans? Perhaps it is just me. There are possibly people who find such statements comforting. However, I am not one of them, and hearing such a thing after significant loss is not really helping the process of grieving.

On the other side is what angers a friend of mine. People who won’t accept credit for their own efforts and who consistently attribute anything good in their life to the gracious boon of a higher power. I get where she is coming from, and I agree to a certain extent. It is one of those things that is very cultural. You can’t accept credit or compliments for fear of appearing as a braggart. So, you have to fob it off as “nothing, really,” or not really anything that you did… You were merely a spectator while some other being did it all and you ate the popcorn? I’m a little more lenient. I think that if you are a person of faith and want to give thanks or credit to your chosen deity for giving you the winning genetic lottery ticket or possibly bringing some helpful influences into your life… all well and good. However, completely disregarding your own effort and will to accomplish a goal seems overdoing the humility thing. I think it is perfectly ok to say, “Hey, I did this! And I’m proud of it!” without all the accompanying false modesty (or maybe real modesty but falsely placed).

So, why do people say these things? Why is it more comforting to think that there is some grand scheme to which we are completely ignorant and just sorta following along hoping we get to be the “good guys” in the story and live happily ever after? Why do we attribute bad things to that same plan rather than just admitting that sometimes bad @#$% just happens. Sometimes it even happens to decent folk, and contrarily sometimes good @#$% happens to people we think really don’t deserve it. Do we get to make that decision, in fact? This person deserves the good @#$% and that one doesn’t? And beyond that, if good people are tested, they should get the bad @#$%. If they get the bad @#$%, why would I want to be good? On the other hand, if the bad @#$% happens to bad people, therefore by that logic, any person having bad @#$% happen must be a bad person. See how that works? Yeah, trying to wrap my brain around that sort of logic is painful.

Though I said that I really wasn’t going to get into the religious aspects (as in organized religion), and I’m not, really; I will actually generalize to say that most modern religions all predict rewards and such after death. There definitely seems to be more of a focus on “Life sucks and that’s cool, because when you die everything will be perfect.” I just don’t know how I feel about that. Combine that with the wide variety of doctrines and instruction manuals that have the different ways to qualify for said rewards… Yeah, that’s how wars start, and I’m just not going there.

I guess my biggest problem with it is the free will thing. If there is a plan, all predetermined, what is the point of any of us behaving ourselves, acting like decent folk, or bothering with things like ethics or morals in general? See my circular logic-spiral-of-death above. It seems a little redundant in fact. If the overseeing mind has already been made up, what is the point of doing good? That being said, I know that a few centuries ago people were burned at the stake for even asking that question.

However, I have to admit my own susceptibility to the mindset of external locus of control. For me, it isn’t the comforting kind that says, “These things are sent to try my faith,” or “That didn’t work out because there is something better in store for me.” That’s not how my brain tends to tick. In my case, it is my feeling of dread and expectation. I cannot accept the good. Maybe it is the years of hearing that good people are tested and that their reward comes after death. Maybe it is that the external locus of control I allow in my weaker moments belongs to Murphy and all his Laws. When things are going too well or a few good things come my way, I start getting nervous. It’s true. I have to remind myself consciously as a woman of science that the universe is not really some sentient malevolent being waiting for me to get complaisant so it can drop a large anvil on my head.

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But that is how we’ve been taught to think in this modern world. Expect the worst and take what you get. I actually wrote about this aspect once before (See Monster Spray). It is one of the most insidious things that can happen in the human brain, believing that there is a balance out there and a tally being kept and too much good requires for that balance to be reset by something awful… or vice versa. It keeps us from accepting the fact that sometimes, bad stuff just happens. It can hurt, but we can run from it or learn from it (my absolute most cherished line ever produced for a Disney film). The other side of the nasty little psychological parasite of external locus of control… we don’t truly enjoy the good @#$% because we are too busy waiting for the bad @#$% to be balanced out in the tally books. At some point, we need to realize it isn’t all some big conspiracy. We need to enjoy the good and live the best we can with the bad… maybe learn a bit from both.

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In the event of explosive decompression…

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So, as it happens, I was having a discussion with a friend… Ok, the discussion was an overestimation of the amount of contact I get to have socially. It was email. I admit it freely, but there was back and forth and all of that… and what was I saying? Oh, yes… so, I was having interactive commentary electronically with my friend about self-care. Hmmmm… well, now, that is just a little sad. So much of my interactive contact lately appears to be via technology… <sigh> It is better than nothing at all, I suppose. I think that somehow we have become incredibly polarized in our modern western society about what constitutes appropriate levels of caring for oneself vs. levels of that self-care becoming selfishness and self-centered disregard for others. The problem seems to be that we have become as hyperbolic in this continuum as we have in opinions and the expression thereof. Happy balance seems to be something that people struggle with universally.

I’ve touched on some of the issues previously (See previous post on Living Life Without Giving a F@$%), and a friend of mine has often talked about the art of being considerate and having some manners… or the sad fact that consideration and manners seem to be remarkably absent from too many of our daily interactions. There are so many ways we’ve lost the art of just interacting with the other humans and individuals that share space with us in a non-damaging way. The excuse I hear too often is that we live in a fast-paced world where antiquated social conformities have no place… or “they were rude to me first”… or “I don’t know them and probably won’t ever see them again.” These are horrible excuses. Who cares if it is a perfect stranger? Does that give anyone the right to be a complete jerk? I don’t think so, but I digress. I think I’ve also touched on the paying it forward philosophy at some point as well. You may never really know how your effort to be polite, kind, or just smile at a stranger might actually impact them in a way like the “trickle-down” effect made multiple individuals have a better day than the one that started for them. It could happen. And… not really where I was going when I started this… so…

I guess what prompted all of the musings and ponderings and interacting via email was that somehow for a good many people in my social and professional sphere, the pendulum has swung very far the other direction. For a good many people I know, the prospect of doing even the smallest thing for their own pleasure is riddled with guilt. They have fallen into an abyss of abnegation where they are unable to perceive their own martyrdom. Yep, that’s what I said… martyrdom.

Honestly, it isn’t that martyrs in history were so very bad. Hell, many of them were granted sainthood… until they were decannonized or whatever it is they do to remove them from our calendars. Great sacrifices in the cause of their faith, the well-being of others, or various acts of rectitude earned them the honor… usually posthumously, which seems a bit of a shame to me. Seriously, if these folks are such pillars to be idealized to advocate for the rest of us poor sinners… wouldn’t it have been nice to have their example around for a bit longer? Just a thought… Anyhow, I didn’t mean to take this into an ecclesiastical place that will likely get me in trouble with the various organized religions of the planet. That wasn’t really my intent. I guess what I am saying is that saints and martyrs for the most part are rare. It’s true. I suspect that there are a good many aspects of those lives may not have borne well under the scrutiny of modern media or social media where privacy is non-existent… BUT those lives were exceptional, which is all to the good. It doesn’t mean that all of us should live those same austere lives of sacrifice. In some ways, it is not only unhealthy… it’s pretentious.

We are all human… well, I’m making an assumption, y’all feel free to examine that point for yourselves, but I strongly suspect that if you are reading this… you are human. Most human beings are not actually set up for sainthood. Not saying that it couldn’t happen given the right circumstances, but we are programmed for survival and to that end, we are programmed with needs and wants and all that jazz.

I’m going to let you in on a secret… There is absolutely nothing wrong with that… provided of course that it doesn’t actually harm or interfere with someone else’s needs, wants, and all that jazz. The whole idea of self-sacrifice to the detriment of one’s own well-being ultimately results in one outcome: YOU WON’T BE THERE TO HELP THE NEXT TIME.

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Yep. That is what I said. I’ll let you in on another secret: There are a lot of other people, employers, and entities in the world that are perfectly willing to let you sacrifice everything. To put no finer point upon it, they will use you up and find another one just like you. It sounds harsh when I put it that way, and I by no means am trying to say charity is wrong or a waste. I’m just saying that giving and caring starts at home… frequently with oneself. There are those in the world who adhere to this particular maxim a bit too stringently. Those people are the ones who are living their lives without giving… well, you know. However, it isn’t so much that they live their lives without inhibitions due to external judgment, but some of them live their lives without consideration for others or the feelings/rights/expectations/etc. thereof. They do what they want, when they want, say what they want, and they don’t care who it impacts, hurts, or even destroys so long as they receive what they wanted. That is the far end of that spectrum opposite the saintly souls who never pay attention to their own wants or needs and frequently sacrifice either or both to accommodate those of others.

NEITHER OF THESE EXTREMES IS HEALTHY OR SOMETHING TO WHICH WE SHOULD ASPIRE. There. I said it. It took me over 1000 words, but the idea is a balance. That happy medium thing I typed earlier. People need to think about and have some consideration for the other humans around them, but that includes themselves. Everyone should engage in regular self-care. This goes beyond the general eating, drinking, breathing, and sleeping. It also means that there should be opportunity to engage in enjoyment. Aside from nourishing the body, each individual should also nourish the soul… or psyche if you prefer. That means that there should be activities in life that enrich and… just make you feel good (obviously respecting the same rights of others and the various laws of the land… the fact that I have to put that in there is annoying but some people would take it too far). It also means that when a person takes the time to engage in those activities, there should not be the overwhelming guilt of “Oh no, I shouldn’t be [laughing, reading, coloring…insert other life affirming and enjoyable activities] because… reasons.”  The reasons are immaterial. Everyone needs to have some pleasure in their lives. Our brains and bodies need the chemicals that are produced when we experience pleasurable sensations. When we deprive ourselves of that chronically, it can be as detrimental as depriving the body of nutrients or sleep. We function better as human beings when we feed our bodies and our psyches with the things that enrich us.

There are a lot of people in the world that are totally out of practice with this concept. They have been put in positions where self-sacrifice has become the norm. Self-sacrifice occasionally is not an unhealthy concept. In fact, when we love others, we frequently put their needs above our own. However, when it becomes an all-the-time situation, it is no longer healthy. It can even become detrimental to the care of those individuals we love. Occasionally it is not even in their best interests due to fostering dependency or setting them up for false senses of entitlement. Sometimes the idea of setting boundaries and engaging in the occasional self-indulgence is so foreign that when it happens, the guilt become unbearable. If this is the case for you, dear reader, it’s possible that you have lost the ability to have fun and enjoy your @#$%. I prescribe a consistent program of regular fun and daily self-care until it becomes less foreign. Doctor’s orders. If you are struggling for ideas, reach out to a friend… I’m betting they have some ideas or at the very least can brainstorm over chocolate ice cream (or chardonnay or… you get the idea). You have the absolute right to be the star of your own show and have some fun without the guilt leeches trying to suck all life from your soul.

Remember what the safety lecture says at the start of every flight on an airplane, in the event of cabin depressurization, breathing masks will fall from the ceiling. They always, ALWAYS, remind you to position your own mask before helping anyone else. That is to make sure that you don’t pass out or expire before you can actually assist the others. You can’t help someone else if you are incapacitated due to your altruism. So, charity and kindness and the care of others are entirely admirable, but remember to start with yourself. If you don’t take care to stay healthy and strong (physically or emotionally), you won’t be at your best for anyone else either. So, remember to affix your own mask over your nose and mouth first… and breathe normally.

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The Blessed Bean…

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The time has come to discuss a very important matter, one dear to my very existence. I speak, of course, of the dear fruit of the coffee plant. Yes, dear readers, I shall now sing the song of my people. I love coffee!!!

A lot of people like coffee. They may even find it a necessity of being a functioning human. Many do. However, I just love everything there is about coffee: The fragrance, the bold flavor, the somewhat bitter taste that gets your attention but is still comforting. There is just something absolutely fabulous about the beverage.

My love affair started at a tender age. I think I was all of maybe 3 or 4 years old. I couldn’t help but notice that the adults at the table had a cup of inky fluid that I was never offered. This sparked my curiosity. My questions and requests to have some were not to be subdued with attempts to deceive my young mind. I was not to be fooled by my juice, milk, or other innocuous beverage being put into a similar vessel. I knew that what my father (grandfathers and grandmothers) had was not what was being offered to me. My mother did not partake of the same drink as she has only in recent years developed any ability to stand the taste of coffee. She adores tea (in the British sense with either milk or lemon depending on the type), but she never liked the taste of coffee. Even now, as she has attempted to cultivate a tolerance, the resulting concoction can hardly be recognized for the magnificent brew by the time she is done putting all the other stuff in there.

Back to the past, I begged to be allowed to have some of the coffee that everyone else drank. As the deceptive tactics did not work, scare tactics were tried. I was told it would stunt my growth and that it would turn my neck black. I was not deterred. Eventually, my father allowed me to take a sip of his coffee. It was black, unsweetened, and hotter than the surface of the sun. I truly believe that I was allowed that first sip because it was believed that the harshness would cause me to run screaming from the room to never attempt drinking it again. I am not certain if it was some unconscious knowledge that this was the motive coupled with my natural orneriness that foiled their plans, but the result was exactly contrary to their wishes. I was hooked. I did burn my tongue a bit, and that was a tad unpleasant, but the taste was amazing. I was still not allowed to have my own coffee regularly, but it was too late.

So… I am a coffee drinker. I drink it generally from the time I get up in the morning until sometimes late in the evening. I do not participate in the world upon waking without it. That’s not so much that I can’t function before coffee, but I prefer not to interact with the world… mostly the other humans in it before I’ve had my moment of communion with the decoction of the blessed bean. It’s more of a spiritual experience than a chemical one. I have had people ask me whether I sleep. I do. In fact, when I do not drink my coffee in the regular doses, I actionally have trouble sleeping. Well… more trouble than usual with my odd patterns and dreamscapes, but that is a whole other post. I have been known to drink coffee and go straight to sleep. I apparently inherited this particular trick from my father. I have never really experienced the “jitters” or nervousness that caffeine imparts upon some people. It seems my system likes sufficient stimulant in my bloodstream to keep things running smoothly and focused. It is possible that I have been self-medicating for some attention deficit all these years.

Let’s talk types of coffee. I’m not really one of those gourmet, fancy types. I will occasionally get a flavored coffee or sometimes one of those froofy desert-type things that contain whisky or liqueur and have a lot of whipped cream on them. That’s not what I prefer, though. That isn’t coffee. That is a coffee-flavored liquid desert. I choose plain ol’ café Americano, black, no sweetener… the stronger the better. I also like espresso (that’s “ES-Press-o” not “expresso”). I have been known to drink a cappuccino, which adds milk against my nature, but as long as it isn’t flavored with large amounts of some sweetening agent, it is okay. Growing up in the Middle East, I developed a love for traditional Arabic coffee made in the old fashioned dallahs over a fire. I also really like Turkish coffee which has strong flavors of cardamom and almost seems like a good rich dark chocolate (without sugar). I like dark roasts and bold roasts and there are even some flavored coffee beans that I enjoy (hazelnut, and some of the seasonal specialties). I have never developed a taste for chicory. I do not understand the purpose of adding this to coffee. Suffice to say, just leave it out of mine, thanks. My favorite coffee of all times is actually called Deathwish. Aside from having a badass label and accessories with skulls on them, they really have the strongest, most caffeinated, and smoothest brew I have ever tasted. They have their original and Valhalla Java (Odinforce Blend). The company also produces k-cups of both lines for the times when you just gotta have it and don’t have time for a whole pot of brew. You can check it out at http://www.deathwishcoffee.com/ But I digress… I just really love my coffee.

We can discuss for a while the various types, brands, species… of beans. For instance, I understand that Jamaica Blue Mountain is supposed to be one of the best coffees. The Kona from Hawaii is also highly prized. Kopi Luwak… um… yeah. So, apparently, the most expensive coffee in the world, also called civet coffee, costs roughly $60 an ounce ($2.50 per gram… for those on metric). Why is it so dear? Well, apparently it has to do with the rarity and difficulty of the process of obtaining the beans. I also truly believe the price is jacked up because there are crazy people willing to pay nearly $900 for a kilo of the stuff. This particular type of coffee is obtained through a digestive process; specifically, the digestive process of an Asian palm civet. This creature is, I believe, related to a cat or raccoon or possibly a ferret, but looks like a cross between a rat and a possum to me, and truly could have been used as a model for The Princess Bride ROUSes. They are about the size of a housecat. They apparently like to eat the coffee cherries. For those who don’t know, coffee beans are not beans or legumes at all. They are, in fact, the pit or stone of a small red fruit that looks like… well, a cherry. So, the coffee cherries, which taste nothing like the fruit we normally eat on top of chocolate fudge cake or sundaes, are eaten by these little creatures. Since their digestive systems do nothing to the hard central seed of the fruit, it does what all indigestible material does… it passes right on through. And… you guessed it, the civet defecates the remainders, and people collect it and rinse (we hope) to collect the coffee beans from the rest of the undigested material. The beans are then taken through the rest of the process like other coffee beans and sold for large amounts of cash to people with, in my opinion, more money than sense. I really have to wonder if it isn’t some sort of novelty joke. “Here, dear. You’ve always said my coffee tastes like crap…”

I have to wonder. Who actually was wandering around Asia and saw this little weasel thing take a dump and said, “Hey, I think I’m gonna dig around in the poop and see what’s in there!” Subsequently finding coffee beans… they decided to grind up and make a potion out of it?!? Really? I am consistently wondering about the human race and how we came to eat and drink some of the things we did. This one, however, takes the cake… or the bean… or the cup of coffee.

So, Kopi Luwak, the most expensive coffee in the world is crap. Quite literally, it is. However, some people say that the process makes it smoother and less acidic. I would have zero clue about this since I cannot afford $23 cup of coffee… Maybe when I win the lottery, I’ll give it a try. In the meantime, I will continue to drink my coffee without running it through a small mammal. Coffeewitch needs her coffee.

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Confessions of a Designing Woman

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I wanted to be Julia Sugarbaker. For any of you old enough to have watched a little show called Designing Women, you will recall it was about a design firm in Atlanta, Georgia founded, owned, and operated by two Sugarbaker sisters played by Dixie Carter and Delta Burke. It also included Annie Potts as a designer and Jean Smart as the bookkeeper. Other cast members came and went through the run of the show, but those were the four that I watched the most, and in my opinion, it was when the show was the best. There was, of course Meshach Taylor who played Anthony, and Alice Ghostley who provided substance to the pride the south has in our crazy relatives. And let’s not forget the intro with Ray Charles singing Georgia On My Mind. All of the characters were loveable and moreover, for those of us who live, have lived, or have relatives in the southern United States will attest, the situations and personalities were recognizable and identifiable. It saddens me to think how many of that cast are no longer with us.

I know, and I’ve always known that these were skilled actors playing roles that were written rather than real people that were merely walking around in Atlanta being filmed (this was when television was for entertainment rather than reality), but I always felt that Julia Sugarbaker was a lot of Dixie Carter, and Dixie was a whole lot of who Julie Sugarbaker was. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to look like her, and heaven forbid I ever have to wear 1980’s era shoulder pads again… and let’s not get started about the hair styles. I have no secret desire to be an interior decorator, and anyone who has been to my house can testify to the fact that I have no talent in that arena. It wasn’t even so much that I held the same beliefs or political leanings or opinions on every issue. It was that no matter how passionate, incensed, outraged, or emotionally touched she was, she always managed to express herself in a way that sounded intelligent, well-read, and witty. I am sad to say that for me, that skill is absent. I find more and more as I get older, my passions and emotions seem to deprive me of the ability to speak English or any other language. I get tongue-tied, flabbergasted, and gobsmacked with alarming frequency; occasionally resulting in embarrassing leakage from the ocular region. Thankfully the leaks have not become system wide.

Julia Sugarbaker never resorted to cursing (or cussing as they say in the South). Vulgarity was never a substitute for wit. She managed to convey everything she needed to in erudite verbiage that likely made the target feel even smaller than if she had laid upon him/her with a barrage of F-bombs.

Now, I won’t say that an occasionally utilized swear word placed appropriately and not too frequently can’t carry some powerful emotions. I cannot say that my own language is as squeaky clean as my mum would prefer. Indeed, I cuss too much, and I’m working on it. However, I have to admit that when I stub a toe on an offending piece of furniture, it does seem to hurt less with a generous helping of abuse seasoned with @#$% and a couple of &%#$@*%#$&. It’s not that I don’t know better words. Test scores going all the way back into my primary school have shown that my verbal acumen is actually not too bad. I can pull out the five-dollar words with the best of them, and yet… when I get into a situation where my physical or emotional feelings are imperiled, I end up falling back upon @#$%.

It’s a shame really, and as I said, I’m working on it. I’m even thinking of having one of those jars that I have to put money in every time I use a swear word. On the other hand, that would require me actually having the cash on hand all the time given my propensity to stub a toe (I am also blessed with a considerable lack of physical grace). So, I will endeavor to improve my communication skills by limiting my forays into the land of the loose language, and I suspect the other secret to being more like Julia/Dixie is to listen more than speak. We’ll see how well that goes.

 

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Goal-setting, and Other Flights of Fancy

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It’s not really that I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I just don’t think that they by and large are effective for most of the people that set them. In fact, they generally last through the first month of the year… maybe two months if we are lucky. I’ve talked about the whole issue of the resolution before.

Resolving to Solve in a New Year

Most people have extremely good intentions… and deplorable follow through. I’m generalizing. Of course, I am. There are people who absolutely carry through with their goals. People have made better health choices, started new diets, formulated plans for workouts, decided to quit smoking/drinking/punching drunk monkeys… Just seeing if you were still paying attention. What makes some people more successful with their resolutions than others?

It could be a personality thing. Some people are stubborn… I wouldn’t know anyone like that. Nooooo.

It could be that they choose easy goals.

It could be that their shoes were too tight… Ooops, wrong holiday. Nevermind.

The truth is, it probably isn’t any particular magical formula. It may be a combination of a lot of factors, but I’ll tell you one thing. I’m betting that the goals that those “follow-through-ers” are SMART. No, I don’t mean over intelligent or hyper-intellectual (I totally made that up). I mean S.M.A.R.T.

Some of you may have heard the term before. It is used a lot in management training and supervision, but it works for self-management and introspection as well. It is an acronym and a mnemonic supposed to help us plodding managerial types make sure that when we set goals, they are the right kind of goals that aren’t going to self-sabotage mid action and blow up in all of our faces. Some of the letters have multiple meanings depending on your application, but it all boils down to something like this:

  • Specific – target a specific area for improvement.
  • Measurable – quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.
  • Attainable – assuring that an end can be achieved.
  • Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.
  • Time-related – specify when the result(s) can be achieved.

I can tell you right now that the reason that a lot of New Year’s resolutions go poof before the end of first quarter is that they don’t adhere to the criteria above. Most people are way too general in their identified goal and they fail to pick something that they can have an actual measure of success. Seriously, if you are looking at a subjective measure… the truth is, you are going to get a lot of “Meh, I guess I did it.” That doesn’t actually work when you are looking for some positive self-reinforcement. Like it or not, humans respond to facts and figures and numbers, numbers, NUMBERS. Being able to say, I have been smoke free for 27 days as opposed to “Yeah, I think I feel better” is a huge bonus in the psychological reinforcement department. In fact, if you can give yourself gold stars, it is even better. The word up there for “A” is Attainable, but I don’t like that one. I like ACTIONABLE. Why do I like that better? It is an active word. It also doesn’t make the “R” word redundant. Pick a goal that has an action; something that can be actually done, not thought, dreamed, or considered, and movement and concreteness help. Realistic is also important (though, I might also say Relevant, because if it isn’t meaningful, it won’t feel worthy of the effort). Sooooo important. Seriously, it might be a goal to be debt-free, but if you have mortgage, most of a car loan, student loans, and a couple of credit cards, that is not going to happen as a short term situation. That’s more of that long term goal; not that it isn’t a good goal, just probably not the best choice for a New Year’s resolution. Instead, in this example, pick the smallest of the balances and say “I’m paying this off by…” Which totally brings us to the last and very important part of the SMART goal: TIME. Why is Time so important? It is because of that statistic that says the majority of us give up those resolutions before Valentine’s Day. Short term goals are more likely to bring success. With success comes positive psychological reinforcement and a big confidence boost. “YEAH ME!!! I paid off that card… Now, for my next trick…”

I avoided making New Year’s resolutions for a while now. Mainly, I didn’t like the odds. I’m way too prone to the statistical norm of forgetting about my self-set goal by St. Patrick’s, if not sooner. Instead, I tend to stick with short term, year round inventories and self-evaluations. However, I think I’m gonna give the NYR a try again this year. I’ve got a long list of things that I want to change in 2016. I’ve got financial goals, health goals (yes, more physical fits are a-comin’), home goals, family goals, job goals… Goals, I gots ‘em. But I’m not going to be setting myself up for failure by putting them all down on my list of resolutions. At least one of my resolutions is already set up for me. I let a friend talk me into the Herbalife Body Transformation Challenge (http://level10btc.com/). Yes… that is what I did. I am still wondering what insanity possessed me, but it has specificity, measurement (oh lord and before pics), action absolutely required on my part, realism (because even with anxiety pounding at my door, I know I can actually do this), and there is a deadline/finish line (and oh lord after pics). So, resolution #1 is already in there. I think I will probably pick at least one in the financial land of my life, and that, my friends, may be it. Once I accomplish these, the world is my oyster, and I’ll pick a few more.

There is no reason whatsoever that we should be restricted to resolve once a year. I personally think that we should make it an ongoing thing… maybe quarterly. The thing is, if you are like me, you need some sense of success to give you the energy and impulse to continue. So… be SMART. Start with one or two. Make ‘em short term, and make sure you reward yourself when you make that goal! Happy New Year, everyone!

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Confessions of the Over-utilized, Queen of the List-makers

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I have a confession. I have a touch of the obsessive-compulsive traits. Most of the people who know me are now screaming out, “A touch?!?” Yes, a touch. I know that it is just a touch because I don’t break out in hives walking in my own very messy house. I can actually reside with the man I married who never seems to notice the clutter that to me looks like an audition for an episode of Hoarders. Also, as a psychologist, I know I don’t actually meet the criteria. I don’t have rigid rituals or counting or irrational unbidden thoughts of doom if I don’t complete those rituals.
So, I don’t have the full blown disorder, and while I am a control freak of the highest honor, I am not going to melt down if someone goes through the house making every picture crooked. No, that is not a challenge! However, in the last year or so, I have developed at least one ritual that intrigues and even concerns me a bit, if I’m completely honest with myself.

I’ve started making lists. I don’t mean the shopping list, or the going-to-the-store-don’t-want-to-forget-the-one-thing-I-actually-needed list. I mean lists for tasks, lists for packing, lists for work, for after work, for vacation, lists for the day, the week, the next trip, and the next six months. Yeah, I admit it. I’m a little worried. At one point, it was genuinely just a way for me to make sure I didn’t forget to do important things, especially during the health crisis of the last year. However… it has become something more.

It may be that my life has quite literally developed way more irons in the fire than any one person can technically manage. On any given day, I have too many tasks, too many things to worry about, and way too many places I’m supposed to be at any given time. I know this. And, it most definitely calls to mind other articles I’ve read and advice from other people about simplifying my life and learning to say “No,” but that might be a bit advanced for me at this point. The overall outcome to the plate spinning and balls in the air is that I’m always afraid that they are going to all come crashing to the ground in a gloriously, unholy mess. The result is that I get anxious, very anxious… occasionally finding myself holding my breath without realizing it. I do all the normal, healthy things for this. I use my belly breathing techniques that I use with trauma victims and clients with anxiety. I use the yoga and mindfulness techniques that I have learned from Mary NurrieStearns (awesome lady, by the way). I focus on my breathing and the sensation of my feet on the floor and my ass in my chair… and it works… for approximately 10 minutes. It isn’t that the techniques aren’t good. It is that my brain is ruminating and still processing all the things that I need to do, and it is in a muddle and swirling around, and very unlike the clouds passing (Another Mary technique), they buzz around in my head like a swarm of angry yellow jackets.

So, I succumb to what has become my most reliable coping mechanism. I start making lists. Like magic, the anxiety dissipates. Now, in this world of technology, smart phones, personal planners, smart watches, electronic assistants (Siri hates me), wearable technology, and every other means of keeping us on time for our very busy lives, you would probably think that I’ve got it all on my phone ready to notify me of every upcoming meeting and missed appointment. Nope. Not this time.

Our electronic babysitters are actually contributing factors in my occasionally overwhelming angst. My phone pings, my computer pings, my alarms go off… hell, the car even yells at me for seatbelts and fuel. The point being? I fluctuate between tuning out the pings, beeps, pongs, and boits… OR I jump out of my hide for every blessed one of them. Either way, it isn’t particularly helpful to my anxiety levels, stress, or me actually not forgetting any of my obligations. There is also something just amazingly therapeutic to writing out a list of things that have to be done and crossing them off… sometimes like Zoro with a rapier! It helps to write my tasks out where I can see them. It takes them out of the buzzing cloud in my head and makes them physically present in the world in front of me. I can actually look at them and assign different priorities or deadlines. When I actually do the task, I can cross it out, or I can erase it on a dry erase. (But I have to tell you, there is something much more satisfying about crossing it out.) My typical habit is to start out the week with a list of tasks. Some of them are actually tasks that I do every single week, and technically, I shouldn’t need to write them down to remember them. They are almost habit, but I put them on the list first thing on Monday morning anyway. Throughout the week I cross accomplished ones off, and others get added as fires crop up to be addressed in my work/life balance. When I get to the end of the week and there are a few tasks still there, they move to the top of the list for the next week and so it goes.

Maybe it isn’t so bad. So far, I haven’t gotten into the quagmire of ruminating and circling the same tasks that rotate from week to week without ever being crossed off. It works for me… so far. It helps me stave off the overwhelming urge to run away and join the circus… so far. It hasn’t let me forget anything really important… so far.

So far… so good. I guess I will go ahead and accept my coronation as Queen of the List-Makers.

 

personal, The New Cheese

Artificial Unintelligence or the Day Siri Tried to Get Me Fired

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So, there are entire site dedicated to the devil that is autocorrect. We have all seen and probably laughed heartily at the Freudian slips that our various communication devices seem to enjoy using to our abject horror. There are times when I am amazed and baffled at the hash that the circuitry seems to make of my simple exchanges. For example, who on earth would have gotten “Quetzalcoatl” from “mayonnaise”? For that matter, what the hell was the Aztec deity of wisdom and life doing in my phone in the first place?!? Points to ponder, that… Anyhow, as I was saying we all know that autocorrect is the bane of any neutrally classified conversation and the algorhythms thereof appear to have been deliberately programmed by a pubescent brain with a naughty streak that makes sexual innuendos from Captain Jack Harkness look like Sesame Street (extra points for those who got the reference). However, I believe that the voice activated artificial intelligence that have given personality to our smart phones may have exceeded even that threshold.

Though many of my brethren and sisters out there may have gone with other operating systems and their own flavors of artificial assistance, I have adhered to the evil fruity empire and that particular nemesis of my own… Siri. Please excuse my language, but Siri is an unmitigated bitch and works actively to make my life a more difficult place to live.

What could you possibly mean, Tananda? Siri does not have emotions or sentient thought. She is but a mere collection of programming and circuitry with only dichotomy decision making and search routines.

That’s just what she wants you to think!

Most people have the experience with Siri and other forms of electronic assistants of misunderstood speech and less than helpful answers. There was a whole range of commercials that made fun of GPS map systems with “RECALCULATING” as a regular punchline. Again, they are probably an easy target for humor since they have relatively simple interface and regardless of the progress one might perceive towards science-fiction-like computers and robotics, these devices are still in grammar school by comparison. It isn’t a negative observation, it is just realistic judgment of the initial stages of true human-to-machine interaction. To be completely honest, I’m not sure I want these things to get too clever. I’ve seen the movies, I don’t want to be controlled by our mechanical overlords, thanks.

Siri has, to this date, gotten me lost in some very unsavory situations and locations. She has a determined lack of desire to allow me to contact my mother by calling or texting. Instead she prefers to attempt to send the messages meant for my mother, my husband, or friends to business contacts and superiors who might not really appreciate being told that I love them or asking about various locations for planned debauchery. More than once I have attempted to ask the cow to “Call mom” or “Text Ted” to have her say, “What would you like to say to Doug Rodgers?” Seriously… or should that be Siriously?!? How on earth did she get that name from “mom” or “Ted”? It can lead to what I might like to call… “complications.” I’ve been brought to the brink of violence towards this disembodied entity that resides in my phone. More than once I have been diminished to the point of cursing at her with a string of profanity that rivals George Carlin’s Seven-Words-You-Can’t-Say-On-Television. To which Siri (proving that she is passive aggressive and has a seriously sadistic bent) replied “Okie Dokie, artichoke” at one time and “I was merely trying to help” at another. See what I mean?!? She’s evil. However, nothing quite compares to the day Siri tried to get me fired.

That is what I said. You read it correctly. It is my sincerest belief that while Siri is supposed to be without true sentience or personality, she secretly has “woken up” and become my archenemy and wants me to die a horrible death… or at very least be fired and forced to live in ignominy and humiliation for the rest of my days. So, for the record, I’m putting it on paper… well, not paper, but electronic version thereof… you know what I mean! I want witnesses dammit!!!

For those of you who do not know, I am actually a manager of a team of outreach specialists in the field of healthcare. I have quite a number of them who work for me, but in the infancy of the program, I had but three. Bless them, they worked hard and put up with all my stumbling attempts to define what our program would become. It was a struggle, but we made it… and I digress. As it happens, one of my first employees was male. He came to our employment relationship well recommended with a good many years of experience already under his belt. We’ve since that time gotten to know each other pretty well, but starting out, things were the stiff and professional interactions you might recognize. Everything was still very new and personalities were still figuring themselves out a tad. I primarily was trying to do my best to give an impression of professionalism to inspire confidence in the people working for me.

So, as the business day came to a close one evening, I was heading across town in my jeep. Like a good many people in the workforce today who need to communicate quickly in a variety of circumstances, my crew uses texting. Before any of the HIPAA-aware folks out there start freaking out, no protected health information flows through these lines. It is primarily a way of addressing generic information and safety considerations. Things like, “I’m leaving” or “I’ve arrived” to indicated things that the police have lovely codes for like 10-8 or 10-77.

On this particular day, we had been struggling with a case and trying to access resources in a very short timeframe. My staff member texted me as I was driving to say something along the lines of being unable to fulfill all the requests that were made of us that day.

Now, I’m not one of those who will text and drive. I’ve always seen it as dangerous, and given my propensity for clumsiness and lack of coordination, it would just be idiotic not to mention being illegal in most states these days. However, I do have Siri to assist me with these things. She asked, “Do you wish to respond?” I answered in the affirmative, and Siri said “What would you like to say to….?” So, I responded by speaking into the air, “That’s ok. We will just have to deal with the rest tomorrow.” Now, for those of you familiar with the interface in question, you know that she repeats the message back. For those unfamiliar, the next horrifying response from Siri was, “Your message to … says ‘Ok. I guess I’ll show you my breasts tomorrow.’ Do you wish to send?”

As you might imagine, for all my safety precautions using hands-free options and avoiding texting while driving, I nearly capsized my poor vehicle attempting to prevent that missive from sending along the airwaves. Imagine if you will, me trying to capture from the air the words as in slow motion the word “Noooooooooooo” flies out of my mouth. I could see the nightmare before me during my exit interview in human resources, “So, Dr. Haren, can you please help us understand how you thought it appropriate to sexually harass your employee by threatening him with your breasts?” Oh yeah, that would have been a hoot! Now, looking back, it makes for an enormously humorous situation that we can all get a chuckle from, but I can still almost capture that moment of panic when I thought Siri would likely send the message anyway.

As it stands, I’m still employed and not under any investigations for inappropriate conduct. I have foiled the little electronic @#$% so far. May I continue to be vigilant!

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Psychological Loofah

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photo (1)

One of the things that I have finally figured out, after years and years of completely going about things in the wrong way, is that we all need people in our lives that add to it. Now, by adding I do not mean adding drama, or financial drain, or stress, or emotional turmoil. I mean that everyone needs people in their lives who add something positive to it.

Sometimes, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they add anything. It may be that they take things away. They remove negativity. They remove stress. They remove the dark, nasty cloud that hangs over the head.

During the course of day to day living, most people tend to build up what might be considered a film of nasty, grimy unpleasantness that is picked up from the world. It isn’t that the world is a completely horrible place, but going about the activities of work and interacting with humanity at large generally opens us up to things that are not always pleasant. This might be project deadlines, rush hour traffic, the weather, the bad mood of some other person who has surpassed their aggregate limit of @#$%s to give, or it could just be that we woke up on the wrong side of the bed and things went downhill from there.

In the modern age, we also have a smorgasbord of media that bombards us with negativity. It seems that our “news” agencies flood the ether with the most flamboyantly negative crap they can dig up. Have you ever noticed that a good many of the “reporters” out there can take even the most positive instance imaginable and spin it into horror story? I know. Good vibes don’t sell ads and airtime, but still, it just takes a special kind of miserable to conjure up some ugly for every ray of sunshine. I guess they are crying all the way to the bank, but it just seems an unpleasant way to make a living.

In truth, it doesn’t really have to be the network media, either. Social media rarely goes viral with positives. It’s the negative stuff that usually “breaks the internet.” Fear and anger seem to win the game. And… that’s sad. Truly. Even knowing why it is so doesn’t really help. It is just a sad statement about humanity that we are so focused on the negative. Unfortunately, it isn’t just electronics in our lives, either.

Think about it… you know there are people actually in your life right now that do it, too. You can probably think of at least one person that you interact with on a semi-regular basis that can suck all the air out of a room and turn a good mood into a full blown depression without flexing a muscle. It is like there is an entire species of Grumpy Smurf (for those old enough to remember) who hate everything and who can never let a positive comment live without taking a swipe. As it happens, I have been known to test out this theory. It happened the first time quite by accident, but the person in question was so very negative I attempted to find something positive to bring into the conversation. It wasn’t contrariness on my part (No, really. It wasn’t). It was more a deliberate attempt to cheer us both. I found that I was unequal to the task. It didn’t matter what I said, they could turn it around into something just heartbreaking. Eventually, I just felt frustrated and depressed. However, I now approach it almost as a game. I will say things that are deliberately upbeat and positive just to see how they are going to spin it into the toilet.

In the unseasonably rainy weather we have been having, a brief glimpse of sun was visible. I noted to Grumpy Smurf, “Man, it is nice to see the sunshine again, even if it is just a little while.” The response was classic, “*hmmph* Yeah, it’ll probably just be miserably humid or turn into another drought.” I just have to laugh at these moments.

Knowing the person’s history, I can almost theorize why some people feel compelled to discredit positivity. Sometimes it is an “Expect the worst and take what you get” mindset. If you plan for bad stuff, then you can’t get caught by surprise and maybe you won’t be as devastated by disappointment. The problem with this mindset is that while preparing for the worst, those individuals never seem to get to enjoy the best. All their energy is spent in discounting and looking for the dark cloud around those patches of silver lining. It’s a shame, really.

Another theory is that people who feel the need for the negative spin are playing into “the other shoe” phenomenon. “Things are going way to well right now, the law of averages says I’m gonna get creamed when the other shoe drops,” or “What’s the angle? There has to be an angle?” For some people, history has taught them that when things are going really well, something bad follows right behind. So, they never want to feel “too good.” The other side of that coin is similar to the “expect the worst…” folks. They never get to enjoy their lives because they are so busy looking for that other shoe and the angles.

My point to all of that is that most of us have at least one, usually more of those types with whom we interact every day. Aside from those, there are just the usual bumps and jostles that make up the plethora of life’s little irritations. All those little, and not so little, things contribute to a miasma that builds up on the surface of our personalities like a scum on a pond or mineral scale on the shower walls. We may not even notice that we are carrying it all around with us, bogging us down, making us less shiny. Before we realize what has happened, we’ve got second skin of all that negativity making us one of THEM.

This is why we need the psychological loofah in our lives. Sometimes this is something. Sometimes this is someone. I’m lucky. It’s taken me a while to recognize them for what they are, but I have psychological loofahs and scrubs and chemical peels in my life… I am a psychologist, you know. I build up a lot of that film. For me, there are a number of activities that help me reset and get away from the negatives. Some are daily. Some are weekly. Some are monthly, and some are once a year. The point is that they have become part of my regular regimen to keep that negativity film at a minimum and keep me from being the negative ugliness in someone else’s life. Last but certainly not least, I have the people that are my positive refilling sources. I have been extremely fortunate to have some people in my life who are positive and upbeat (sometimes even when they haven’t had the greatest day on their end either). One in particular always starts the day with a post on social media that says “Be blessed today, sugas!” Usually it is some variation of that. She isn’t Pollyanna, and she has her own struggles, but she tries to contribute positively to the world rather than contributing to what is already an oversupply of negative. I recently told her that her posts are my daily reminder to be more positive than I may feel each day. I’m not sure how she felt about that exactly, but it was true.

My positive friend, her partner, and a few others are people in my life who are a joy to be around balance out the people in my day to day that may be … not so much… I want to be one of those positive people for my friends and loved ones, too. I know that I am not always, but I certainly try. I know that to be healthy physically and emotionally, I need to practice a little mental hygiene. That includes physical exercise, meditation, music, reading good books, laughing out loud at least once a day, and interacting with the people in my life that bring their joy to share with me. I also know that with my psychological loofahs, I stand a much better chance of being what people I care about need instead of contributing to the negative film.

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The Sargasso of Intellect and Industry… In other words the Internet

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TheTruthRevealed

I remember a time when my ability to multitask and utilize wasted moments was legendary. I could get more done in the minutes I consumed my first cup of juice from the blessed caffeinated bean by jumping on the internet to check my mail and maybe pay some bills or balance a checkbook than many others could during their whole day of activity. I was a goddess of industry! I was the queen of time management! I was… you get the idea.

What happened to those days?!? Let me paint you a picture, a “for instance” if you will. Eyes open (voluntarily or completely at the sadistic will of my alarm), I stumble down for my first life-giving cup of coffee. It is, if the timer worked correctly, blistering hot as it probably just finished brewing. I give a testing sip and… yep, set that down for a minute to avoid injury to the delicate tissues of tongue, gum, and palette. I take my cup over to my laptop and open it up. After typing in my password, I open a browser and start the morning. This may also occur using my smart phone, but the general habit is the same. Me, coffee, technology… mmmmm good. You have the picture. You might think, “Sounds good so far.” However, here is where the tale begins to shift. Whereas in days gone by, I would check email, pay bills, check bank balances and maybe act as monitor for some various listservs that I managed; now, I seem to automatically sign into social media and game servers. Yes, I’m ashamed to say it. I’m one of those people who play the “time-wasters”. And that title is so apt it hurts.

I can even rationalize the behavior to myself. I’ll just play through my 100 minutes while I drink my coffee and get myself prepared for the day. I’ll just check my newsfeed for important updates from friends, family, coworkers, and such. I’ll make sure I’m not forgetting someone’s birthday… and while I’m at it, let me just sign into the zombie game and get my rewards for the day’s goals. What was that quiz? Wow, I was an otter in a previous life?!? Who knew? Oh, and I might as well play the hidden object game and get my daily reward for clicking into my addiction. Oh, the timer ran out on the quest, click on the next one. Ok… I’m just gonna WHOA!!! How did it get to be 1:00PM?!?

This is obviously a weekend scenario, but you get the idea. I used to do things with my life. I went outside. I read books. I was actually a voracious reader and usually was reading about four different tomes at the same time along with professional journals for new scientific finds and best practice models. I was a writer… obviously to some extent I still am, but I mean writing papers for assignments, dissertations, theses, scientific journal articles, poetry, and personal journal. I at one point in my life was artistic. I created things. I played music, I sketched, and I used a camera with a certain amount of skill. (Lately, the most impressive photography I’ve done is with my smartphone.) On the more mundane side, I cleaned my house regularly, instead of the pre-company-flight-of-the-bumble-bee-dusting dance. I used to spend my time interacting with people, not zombies and clickbait articles. What the heck happened to me?!?

It seems these days I can’t seem to read more than the 140-some odd characters of a tweet or the regurgitated malarkey handed down in oversimplified form from the various online rags that provide their enticing links on the margins of the social media screen. As for writing, you witness here the majority of my prose that isn’t work-related and full of excessively poor grammar due to the time constraints placed upon the response. The truth is that communication requires thought. Well, let me rephrase that. Communication should involve thought. I think we have all seen a good deal of evidence to support the contrary of my first version of that statement. Significant communication should actually provoke a bit of thought, as well. So, when did I become this moronically clicking imbecile who no longer has time to contribute to a better life for myself? When did I become so attached to the technology that holds me captive and makes time pass without notice or accomplishment. I feel like the computer sucks all of my activity away while I sit there passively staring at it.

The sad part is even things that I need to do on the computer: Writing, researching, general maintenance? That stuff ends up getting thrown by the wayside while I click away at pointless games or get sucked into Wikipedia’s connected links of information. Before I know it, a whole day is wasted and I have accomplished nothing that I’d planned. The truth is that I let myself get sucked in, and I need to take active measures to unplug. That’s right. Me, Myself… I need to unplug from the computer, phone, television and go do something analog, involving physical activity. I’m a full grown woman, but I need to set limits like I would for a child on my computer time. AND since I spend a large portion of my day working on a computer, I really need to cut my time spent staring at the box of static images and text even more than perhaps for someone who spends their days in a less logged in occupation. I need to spend more time with books again, they have missed me, I’m sure. I need to go outside and see light not produced by electronics.

So, my brothers and sisters, prisoners in Potatoland, if you are experiencing lost time, unexplained lethargy and plummets into the various wormholes of social media, Wikipedia, and time-wasters; look for a safety line… it might look like an off switch. It might look like a window with sun shining outside. It might look like a familiar face that you haven’t seen in a while and might like to spend some time with in actual conversation. Set a timer for your computer activities, shut it down, and spend some time with any activity that doesn’t require a charger or power source.

Body Image, Health, Rant

Rant: No one is safe from the fat-shaming media

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gerardbutler

So, I totally got sucked in the other day, like Alice down the proverbial rabbit hole of the interwebs. It started with a perfectly innocent article about iced coffee popsicles (that is innocent, I swear by all that is holy… and by the first bean of the blessed caffenation… ). However, as frequently happens (well, as happens to me that is) a side link caught my attention “GORGEOUS STARS THAT GOT FAT AND HIDEOUS!” (or something along those lines). Try as I might I could not resist the temptation to see this travesty of modern celebrity, and so, I clicked. And I found to my surprise that my temper flared. Once again the paparazzi and media hounds have pissed me off to an extent I didn’t think possible outside political arenas where they have no knowledge and generally speak from their posterior orifices.

Now, I’m going to digress a tad. I’ll try to keep my tangent to a brief ramble. So, bear with me. I have never been what might be considered a willowy sort. I was, at one time called a skinny kid by a grandparent here or there or others of a generation that knew The Great Depression years and thought that being able to see certain bones in a child meant lack of nourishment. I was never emaciated and I was certainly never without enough food to eat. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had gardens and my mom’s magical abilities to make quite hearty meals appear on the slimmest of budgets. At any rate, I was never one that would blow away in a good wind. I was a solid, athletically built youngster that probably fell in the lower to middle range of those damnable BMI charts… in other words average. That being said, I was never what might be considered thick, either. I tended to be on the long scale. However, with age comes wisdom… and then it presents some more unpleasant gifts. One of those less positive side effects of age is what I will call the thickening. I’m not talking about mere weight gain and adipose tissue acquisition. I’m talking just the pure and simple fact that some of us just get visibly and measurably wider/thicker/whatever as we get older. I believe it has something to do with hormones and genetics and such (at least that’s what all those required biology and human physiology courses I took said), but it is just a fact of life. Neither diet nor exercise will fix it. Some lucky folks seem to dodge this bullet in comparison to their peers, though even they show some change from their own earlier years to some extent. They tend to be those willowy types that no amount of childbirth, years, or desserts seems to change (yeah, I want to stab them, too. It’ll be ok. Just put your head between your knees until the urge passes), but for the rest of us, there is just no avoiding the middle aged spread. We can impact body fat percentages, how we feel, our physical health, muscle tone, and energy levels with judicious dietary choices and appropriate exercise, but despite the efforts we will still never become a bean pole (even if we were in youth). Whether I like it or not, without surgical modification, I am never going to be what I was in my younger years. And with that foundation… on we go.

So, this article/slide show that I happened upon had a title at the top of the page: “Celebrities that Couldn’t Stop Eating and Got Fat…” I started paging through the side by side comparisons of various examples, “Before” and “After” as it were. Both genders were represented. However, the more I paged through the some 30 plus slides, the angrier I became. First of all, there is that misleading title. It brings to mind images of lazy bodies shoving bon-bons in their mouths. At no point was there any evidence presented to support the claim that all of the changes pictured were the product of overeating or food addiction. Secondly, the majority of the comparisons were literally years apart and sometimes decades. Additionally, the “After” shots were by no means grotesque in the majority of instances. They looked like normal people who had traversed spans of time and life events and aged… pretty well actually. For instance, if I was male, I personally would not mind having the physique that Lawrence Fishburne has kept. Aside from that, the disparity between the studio publicity photos and other posed examples given as the “Before” shots and the more candid, spontaneous, and natural “After” shots was glaring. So, I was baffled. Why were these celebrities being shamed? And what exactly is being said by all the negativity?

I also noted that often the females presented not only were “victims” of time, but also had the photos taken after delivering children. Um?!? Yeah! Shame on them for embracing motherhood and pregnancy! I know that some people claim to bounce back, but I dare say there is a LOT of work and self-denial that goes into attaining pre-baby physique, and most NEVER DO! (Think Mammy’s conversation with Scarlett O’Hara who could not attain her former figure with the aid of a corset!) Many of the photographic comparisons were with 30-plus year differences, too. Seriously, people?!? Are you saying that in order to be safe from ridicule, one must maintain the body of the 20-year-old? One that surprised me by truly getting me to the boiling point was a caption in which the author/blogger/snarky-social-commentator made the “witty” chastisement of Gerard Butler on his deteriorated physique stating “Hugh Jackman can do it, why can’t you?” That sent me over the top, and I don’t even like Gerard Butler. Now, for one thing, I follow Mr. Jackman in the social media world (Of course, I do! I am female, appreciate the male form, and still breathing). I witness what it appears to take for him to maintain his Wolverine-like physique. He frequently shares images of his training sessions and dietary choices. This is not your average physical fitness routine. He puts a LOT of time, energy (and likely funds) into looking like that, despite any natural biological gifts and predispositions. Aside from that, who can say what additional differences there are in genetic makeup or body chemistry between these two compared leading men. (Not to mention all those government experimental mutation programs… just kidding). Not that Mr. Butler is any less capable of putting in the same efforts and resources to attain similar physical outcomes, but comparing one to another is just not fair. Besides, the picture showed as the “Before” for Gerard Butler was from the Spartan days… seriously, a still from the movie. Hello? Again, I say “Bad shot!” Let’s see? Movie magical film still with lighting and whatever other special effects vs. photo caught by sneaky photo-stalker with the long lens; not exactly an even playing field. Additionally, that was a bloody acting role people! I’ve seen, read, and heard about what some actors and actresses do for different parts. Look at Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale, Robert De Niro, Charlize Theron, and Renee Zellweger. That is just to name a few of the performers who have literally changed their bodies by gaining and losing and putting themselves through physical metamorphosis for the purpose of assuming a character. Do you really think that given the timeframes of filming, deadlines, and such that they did that in the healthiest way possible? I can answer that one: NO THEY DID NOT. For many of the stars out there, the physiques and image that they portray come at a sacrifice to their bodies and health (and sometimes minds). Alas, they chose that lifestyle and career, and we have to assume they knew the risks when they signed up. The pressure to fulfill certain expectations and ideal appearance is something that Hollywood has been rife with since the advent of moving pictures. Gerard Butler is no different. He bulked up and got ripped to play a part. Now, because he is not maintaining that same exact body form some little paparazzo/wannabe journalist is shaming him. Did he somehow become morbidly obese since playing King Leonidas? No, he just looks… normal (well, in truth the guy is considered by most to be quite handsome and probably not average, but you get what I’m saying).

So, why do I give two rips about whether the media or one of their vulture-like representatives is bad-mouthing the A-listers? In all likelihood, those celebrities are probably thinking “Hey, attention is attention. All press is good press.” It keeps them in the public eye. So, they probably don’t care that some little whiner is saying that they aren’t brick @#$%houses anymore.

However, those celebrities are often the representation of our ideals in many ways. Even those among us who have been graced with wonderful ego strength, self-esteem and experience no twinge of doubt in the face of external recrimination can absorb some of the societal expectations and approbation to occasionally observe a paragon of physical virtue and think “I want my body to look like THAT!” That sentiment is typically the primary motivation for the majority of people to diet, exercise, and (yes) have surgical procedures. We have an image of our ideal body in mind. We want to look like the modern gods and goddesses of the public eye. We want to be attractive, and to be considered attractive and successful (yes, an attractive physical appearance often results in the assumption of success) according to the cultural norms. So, when some little hopped up photo-blogger or tabloid hack starts bashing someone who wasn’t prepared for a photo shoot and merely looks age-appropriate or like a normal, average human, what does that do in our subconscious and preconscious? Well, if you are a confident specimen who is happy in your life, it may do absolutely nothing… or possibly you believe that it has no impact to your self-perception. You may be correct. However, for the rest of us, it plants a little irrational seed that to be attractive, beautiful, desirable, loved… you have to achieve physical perfection. You cannot age. You cannot participate in the natural human milestones of life. You must conform to the image that the media has designated as acceptable, and the risk is there for making some supremely unhealthy choices just to avoid being too normal.

Health, wellness, fitness, and diet should not be something that is dictated by negativity or the avoidance of external negative perception. It should be something that we choose because it brings us more satisfaction in our lives. So, I say to the nasty little scandal rag jerks out there who love to put other people down (even if it is the Hollywood “royalty”)… Bug off! Or I might start a movement to encourage the victims of those long lenses to return the favor. How will you vultures bear up to the intense scrutiny and critique of your physique?

Here endeth the rant… at least this one (y’all know me too well to think it’s the last).