Check in #1 -- Whose world is it?

(Note, this is a check in for the whose world is it challenge)

Yesterday was a 12-hour, physical labor workday. Yes, I took breaks here and there and no, the type of labor I was doing was *nothing* compared to what some folks do for a living. But let's just say that, for me, the work was tiring and today I am tired, achy, and not at all looking forward to round two (coming up in a few minutes).

I didn't interact with many people yesterday, yet I somehow managed to trip up considerably on day #1 of my challenge. Yikes! Don't get me wrong, I did have some moments of remembering and executing my mission. However, most of those moments were when I was alone and there was nothing happening to test my resolve.

I started off well enough, waking up before my schedule required to make breakfast for Christian. After he left the house, I gave myself an hour of Elsa time and then got down to business. While I was working, I imagined how psyched Christian would be about all the progress I made while he was gone. I found and laid out all the necessary tools, affixed a small section of drywall, spackled, sanded, and primed primed primed.

That's kind of sweet, right?

But when Christian called to check in, a simple question he asked gave me the impression that he felt I wasn't making quick enough progress. I felt taken for granted. Even worse, I reacted to that feeling in what I am sure was not a very Toscanini's behind-the-counter-guy kind of way.

To begin with, I know that Christian's time estimates for himself are usually over-optimistic. It would stand to reason then, that his time estimates for other people would carry with it this same characteristic. He meant no harm by it and in fact, I am confident his question was geared toward helping me remove any obstacles that may have been hindering my (hyper-speed) progress. But, more importantly, it should not have mattered whether or not he appreciated how hard (or fast) I was working since my intention for that day was for my work to be a gift to him.

My grade so far is a D at best. Good thing that today is a new day and I get a chance to try again.

Wish me luck!

Whose world is it?

A few months ago, while participating in a MassMouth event at Toscanini's, I made my way over to the counter and took a look at the assortment of flavors. I asked the guy behind the counter some "can I ...?" kind of question and was met with a shrug and the following response:

Hey, it's your world. I'm just living in it.

I was tickled by this. Here was this laid-back, hipster looking fellow whose entire disposition seemed to nonchalantly state "I see no reason why I shouldn't do whatever I can to make you happy."


I think about this now and again. Although I technically know that I am not the only "center of the universe" flitting about out in the world, sometimes I forget. And there is a guy behind a counter who makes a point of remembering.


I'm feeling inspired. For some time now, I've been considering publishing some sort of personal challenge that will require that I think or behave differently than I normally do. So here we go.

This week, I will be the Toscanini's behind-the-counter guy. In other words, I want to set aside my ego enough to play the helpful, accomodating, and pleasant "extra" in everybody elses' movies. For accountability, I will make a point of posting how things go -- check back to see the ways in which I do well, the ways in which I fall short, and what I learn in the process.

Wish me luck!

Relatives are great

Once, when going for a walk in New Jersey, something interesting happened -- the leaves of some trees I had been admiring changed color! To be truthful, they only kind of changed color. (And I'm pretty sure no one else noticed.) Maybe that's confusing, so let me explain:

For a considerable portion of my walk, these leaves made up the only green within my field of vision. Though the thought hadn't crossed my mind at the time, nothing struck me as out of the ordinary about the leaves' color. But then, as I continued, a field spread out before me. A green field. Suddenly, after comparison, the "perfectly normal" leaves from before stopped being "green" and became "blue green".

Yes, yes, I know. The physical color of the leaves did not actually change. But how I viewed the color did. When my only point of reference was the "odd" shade of green, I didn't have anything to compare it against to realize it was not actually plain Jane ol' green.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

In college my freshman year, I made the acquaintance of a tall, surfer-dude kind of guy who never went anywhere without his roller blades. Needless to say, I was shocked to later learn he donated his wheels to the Hare Krishnas and was going to join them. I don't think I'll ever forget how he explained why this was the right thing for him.

"It's like you've spent your entire life in the rain and didn't even realize it until someone handed you an umbrella."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

This reminds me of two stories.

The first is about a community where everybody constantly complained about their troubles. The local rabbi comes up with a great plan: everyone should put their troubles in a sack, hang them on a branch of the town's biggest tree, and then, after looking through everyone elses' collection of sorrows, decide which one to take home. In the end, everyone goes home with the same bag they showed up. Not only were all the other bags just as full (if not fuller), the troubles they were full of were completely unfamiliar.

The second story is one of my favorites. It's about a guy who goes to his rabbi for advice about his family -- they are so noisy he can't even think. Week after week, the rabbi tries remedy after remedy, each requiring that the guy bring an additional source of chaos into his house -- the family cow, the chickens, a goat, his in-laws... you name it. Just when the poor guy is at his wit's end, the rabbi instructs him to take everything out, leaving just him and his family. The following week the guy returns to the rabbi, elated. It turns out that a house, occupied by only his immediate family, is a quiet, serene, and peaceful place relative to a house packed full with farm animals and bickering parents.

------------------

Isn't it cool how just viewing one situation in relation to another can change how you feel about one or both situations?

If you're in the mood for some change, I recommend inviting some "relatives" over.

One of the many ways I am annoying

My boyfriend collected coins as a young boy. He selected prized pieces for his collection using a rather novel approach; Coins with a picture of a buffalo, or an owl, or any other animal were held in high esteem and valued more than coins with pictures of bridges, or presidents, or any other thing.

Recently, his coin collection came up in conversation. Since it had been missing for quite some time, he speculated that the collection had been stolen. The last time he could remember seeing any of the coins was before his parents' move a few years back.

His conjecture continued. It involved someone in connection with the movers, a thief or thieves out to make a quick buck. Worse yet, whoever took the coins obviously didn't realize their true value was sentimental. What a waste!

Imagining this one out of a myriad of possible scenarios, my boyfriend grew visibly agitated. "I loved that coin collection," he went on. "And I'm sure half of them ended up as rejects at a Coinstar machine."

This is where I get annoying. But I strongly believe that if we don't know for certain what happened in a given situation, why gravitate toward a made-up scenario that makes us upset?

I offered up alternatives for my boyfriend to imagine.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Recently, during a trip home for Christmas, my wallet and I parted ways. Though I normally don't carry much cash on me, on this particular occasion I had fifteen $20 bills, two $25 Chili gift cards, one $50 Best Buy gift card, and one $50 Visa gift card stuffed into my bill fold. Needless to say, the loss was a bit of a bummer.

Instead of envisioning some slimy thief pocketing my belongings, I intentionally imagined some little kid receiving a gift they might not have received if their down-on-their-luck parent hadn't run into such a windfall or some over-tired, under-paid, poor soul buying themselves the new business outfit they needed to apply for a better job. I also played around with the idea of "loss". Perhaps I would have spent what had been in my wallet at a Casino and on a nice meal with my family. Either way, what I had originally intended to do with that money would have been no less fleeting than what actually happened to it.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Maybe during the move, a small box bounced out of the moving truck and onto the sidewalk, where it was discovered by some young boy walking home from school. Maybe this kid had been having a rough year. Maybe this kid loves animals too, and when he opened the box to discover the coin collection, he felt like the luckiest kid ever. Maybe he let the local police department know, and after the specified waiting period, he was told he could keep what he had found. Maybe sometimes he looks through the coins, imagines who it was that put such a neat collection together, and quietly says "Thank You".

Easter every day

On Easter mornings, my uncle and his family would stop by our house on their way to our annual Easter picnic. While my uncle and aunt worked with my mom and dad to load their vehicles with the supplies needed, my cousin Ricky and I compared our Easter loot.

I am embarrassed to admit how envious I was. His baskets were BIG and beautifully decorated, without layer after layer of scotch tape from previous years of use. And they were choke full with candy, cool toys, coloring books, and Easter themed trinkets. Did I mention they were filled to the brim?

In the back of our yellow station wagon on our way to the picnic, I felt sorry for myself. The youngest of four kids, I was just getting started when my older siblings were already long over the Easter bunny. Having looked through old photo albums, I was aware that my parents' enthusiasm with regards to Easter baskets hadn't survived my birth! One year my Easter basket pretty much consisted of eggs that I had decorated myself a few weeks before.

No matter how big the pity party I threw for myself was, it would immediately disband upon my opening the car door and setting foot on the Easter picnic grounds. There were games to play, pinatas to break open, kids to chase. But more importantly, there was "cascarone time" to look forward to.

Every kid loved cascarones, hollowed eggs decorated with PAAS, filled with confetti, and sealed with tissue paper. If you're not familar with cascarones, you may be wondering what "cascarone time" would be comprised of. It's pretty straight-forward:

1. Lock onto someone as a target
2. Get close to them somehow (Run and sneak!)
3. Before your target can get away, crack a cascarone on their head

The question "How many eggs does your family eat?!" was inevitable once people noticed how vastly my family's supplies outstripped those of every other kid. In the few weeks before Easter, other kids' parents were able to prepare a few dozen eggs, at most. Somehow my parents managed to arm us, year after year, with big, black, garbage bags full.

Needless to say, I had an absolute blast come "cascarone time"!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A few years ago, I invited my boyfriend to go home with me and meet my family. Taking in all sorts of details that I had long ago stopped seeing, Christian noticed an empty egg carton on the kitchen window sill while observing my father prepare chorizo. Before he got a chance to ask what it was for, he saw my dad expertly crack a quarter size hole into an egg, dump its contents into the chorizo, rinse the empty shell, and place it, upside down, into the egg carton.

Christian was mesmerized. He quickly surmised that the shells were for cascarones but what he couldn't understand was why my father was starting in December. "It seemed like he was in auto pilot," Christian told me later.

It dawned on me then. Whereas other parents began the tedious process of building their child's eggy arsenal upon seeing signs of spring, my parents had built the extra effort into their every day, all year routine. My parents didn't start in December because, in fact, they had never stopped.

This was their default.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Even now, there are parts of my parents' day, every day, that are devoted to me. Luckily I now know better than to ever again value anything over that kind of gift.

What toilet are you on?

As luck would have it, the bathroom at the mall we were in had 5 stalls. Given that I was there with my three sisters and mom, and we all "had to go", this couldn't have been more perfect.

When I stepped into my stall, I noticed something funny: the toilet was smaller than usual. I commented on this, and as I proceeded to take my seat, my sisters chimed in from their perches. "Yeah, I noticed that too!", "Ha! That's weird", "I feel like a giant!"

From the last stall, I could hear my mom. "Oh my gosh! This is the smallest toilet I've ever seen." And she kept going. "This is like a baby toilet!", "It's soooo little!", "I can't get over how teeny it is."

The rest of us pitched in our annoyed teenage versions of "Yes, Mom. We get it. We heard you the first time."

I'm sure I rolled my eyes through her continued exclamations. We weren't going on and on about it, why was she?

On my way to the door after washing up, I happened to glance into the stall my mother had just occupied and let out a startled chirp of laughter at the sight that greeted me. The stall my mom had chosen must have been geared for a pre-schooler; the toilet in that stall must have been at most 1/2 the size of the toilets in the other stalls. My mom had been right, the toilet was cartoonishly and ridiculously tiny! I pointed out the difference to my mom and sisters and we had a good laugh about it.

Thinking about it after the fact, I realized I had partially tuned out my mom because I had assumed her experience was exactly the same as mine. I also came to understand that there are all sorts of assumptions I tend to make about other peoples' experiences especially with regard to how they relate to mine.

This bathroom brouhaha turned into a little life lesson: remember that there is no way to know what toilet someone (even yourself) is sitting on.

Sometimes you lead and sometimes you follow

Have you ever watched sand pipers on the shore? They're cute as all heck with their skinny little legs and funny little run. And they don't stop! They run toward the ocean as the tide ebbs and away from the ocean the tide flows. Over and over. Cute and relentless.



Sometimes, I like to imagine that it's not just the sand piper doing all that work to remain consistently close to the ocean. What if, just as the sand piper runs toward the ocean when the tide begins to pull away, the ocean flows toward the sand piper whenever the little beach runner begins to retreat?

I enjoy this image, it reminds me of friendship. It may often be a playful game of chase. But other times, one may follow the other offering support, "Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?" (Perhaps in some of those cases, one may keep near in stealth mode since their companion may actually need some time alone.)

Boisterous or somber, it's a kind of call and response. "Psst, friend, I am here". "Ah, yes. And I am here too".

White Schmite

As a kid, I took in Hallmark holiday specials and department store marketing hook, line, and sinker. This, along with Christmas cards and Christmas songs, led to some pretty serious Christmas anticipation.

The weird thing was that this anticipation didn't dissipate when December 25th finally rolled around. Instead, it gripped me tighter as I found myself waiting for the day to become Christmas.

Sure, I enjoyed the gifts I received. And playing board games with my family was a blast (in my family, the adults and children play together). The food was great, the house was full of laughter, and I was surrounded by people who cared about me.

Despite this, more often than not I crawled into bed Christmas evening feeling defeated. The Christmas I got never matched the Christmas I had looked forward to. It was never white. Since we had no fireplace, stockings were tacked to a wall, not hung on a mantel. The tree stood over only a modest array of typically practical gifts. No one in the family congregated around the piano we didn't have to spontaneously burst into song. The house never had that fuzzy, soft light glamour shot glow. And, if we left anything out for Santa, it would be empanadas!

-----

As an adult, I have come to believe that marketing works to make folks strive to be something they aren't by convincing them that everybody else is. It came to me gradually, but I finally learned to wipe the idea of what Christmas should be off the lenses through which I view the world in order to see (and appreciate) what Christmas actually is (for me).

So yes, my family's Christmas looks nothing like you would ever see in a Christmas greeting card. Thank goodness I finally have the sense to be grateful for it.

When you're ready

With all respect for Buddha, I think the Buddhist proverb "When the student is ready, the teacher appears" is just a little off. In my opinion, it should go something more like this:

When the student is ready, he sees the teacher.

Unlike another common phenomena where you learn a new word and then start hearing it everywhere or meet a new person and start seeing them everywhere, this isn't so much about noticing. It's about projecting*. Unconsciously.

Let's say you are madly in love with a lice-infested, unemployable, ill-tempered, moose of a man. You wonder whether you should stay together though, in your heart of hearts, you are completely confident in your feelings. Everything you hear on the radio points to yes! If the song is about breaking up, you notice that the guy being broken up with sounds nothing like your catch. If the song is about staying together, you notice that the song is about love and commitment and perhaps the guy in the song who is so worth committing to sounds a little like your lousey love interest.

Now instead, let's say your heart of hearts was actually singing a different tune. A song about breaking up would instead be a message, "You should break up!" A song about staying together will help you realize "this is the kind of relationship you deserve and you don't have a shot at it until you drop the loser you're with!"

The words of the song haven't changed. But what you are able to read out of them has. When you are ready to know something, you will begin to run into people / books / road signs that can teach it to you. However, depending on how coy your subconscious self is (or how inattentive your conscious self can be) you may not notice half the time.

At the Museum of Science in Boston a few years ago, I came across a vase on which an optical illusion was painted. If you looked at it one way you would see dolphins frolicking in the ocean. If you looked at it another way, you could see two lovers embracing. (Click here to see an example of this kind of illusion.) The display description that went with the vase mentioned that most adults could easily see both images. It also made the following assertion, which really captured my attention: an innocent child would not / could not see the embracing couple.

What it is that we cannot yet perceive, and therefore learn from, because we are not yet ready?

A world full of teachers surround us. To those we cannot yet see, please be patient. In one way or another, we are innocent children.


*Unfortunately, perhaps due to self-help jargon abuse, the word "projecting" has a bit of a negative connotation. I believe the negative aspects of "projecting" are a result of the student being ready to learn something that is completely incorrect.

Saving something for the swim back

There is a scene in the movie Gattaca where the protagonist is able to beat his "genetically superior" brother in a challenge to swim the farthest away from shore. He explains how he did it with "... I never saved anything for the swim back."

This scene made a big impression on me when I watched it as a college freshman. By not worrying about what was to come later, the underdog was able to pour everything into the current moment and prevail. I thought this was a great catch-all example for how to approach one's life, with some very obvious exceptions.

Based on a few recent conversations spurred by concerns over the economy and job security, I realize these exceptions may not be as obvious as I thought.

---

To be fair, I think the issue is somewhat masked by our ability to (through credit cards and overdraft protection, etc) to go into debt without immediately being aware of it. So, for the following set up, think CASH ONLY.

Harry is hanging out with some friends in town. He knows that a cab ride home will cost $12. Harry has $20.

At some point during the evening, Harry takes a break from dancing with his buddies, sits down at the smoothie bar, and orders a $5 dollar cranberry/orange juice/protein powder shake. While he is enjoying it, a woman he flirted with on the dance floor approaches him and mentions that what he ordered "sounds delicious." Harry remembers that he has $15 left in his wallet. Can he afford to buy her a shake?

---

It's my guess that most adults would answer the above question with a "no" since, if Harry buys the cool girl a shake, he will be $2 short on a cab fare home. I think it's also fair to assume that at a cash only restaurant, most folks know to consider more than the price of food shown on the menu when determining what they can afford to order. (They take into account tax and tip.)

But despite this, there are many high-wage earners who, on top of necessities such as food and shelter, spend and spend and spend until there is nothing left of their net income to set aside for an emergency fund or retirement. In other words, they approach finances the way the hero of Gattaca approached overcoming his shortcomings. Any change of plans -- a failing economy or a job loss, for example -- and they are stranded miles away from shore.

My recommendation is to forget you ever saw the movie when it comes to finances. When pondering an expense and asking yourself "can I afford this?" remember the tax and tip, remember that something may come up to force a change of plans, and remember to leave enough left for your "cab fare home".