Tag: money

We made that up

How are you doing? Are you exhausted? Like deep in your soul, exhausted?

I have some thoughts.

We made up that you have to text someone back.

We made up that you’re supposed to be positive all the time.

We made up that you’re supposed to eat three meals a day.

We made up that you need your own home.

We made up that people are better if they have lots of friends.

We made up shoes.

We made up that you keep your parents’ last name–and not even across the whole world.

We made up school and debt and school debt.

We made up that you should part your hair down the side. Then we made up that you should part your hair down the middle, and that if you part your hair down the side, you’re not with the times.

We made up that you should strive for career success. We thought we made up what success even means, but nobody seems to agree or be happy when they get there.

We made up that you’re boring if you don’t like going out.

We made up that you’re supposed to play it cool when you finally meet someone you have a crush on.

We made up that feeling sexual interest in others means you love your life person any less.

We made up that sexuality has to be strictly organized in an arbitrary way, and oh my goodness are we taking a long time to unmake that up.

We made up that you’re supposed to have a life person.

We made up that you’re supposed to work 40 hours a week.

We made up “boss.”

We made up multi-level marketing and product parties. We also made up corporations and weirdly pyramidy looking corporate pay structures. Either way, a lot of us are struggling.

We made up that kids need to excel in academics.

We made up that it’s vitally important that you show up not a moment late to your daily shift.

We made up that you should tough it out when you’re feeling like you’re breaking down.

We made up that you’re supposed to save hand-holding for your sexual partner.

We made up that girls wear makeup and boys don’t.

We made up the words for girls and boys and we made up how important those words were.

We made up that women are better parents and care-takers.

We made up that men are tougher and stronger and more apt to lead.

We made up that when you order the big ass Denver omelet, you should say “we’re going to volleyball tonight,” instead of “god I love food.” I did this yesterday, and I didn’t even play.

We made up that buttons on your shirt means you respect the people you’re talking to. Or a long strap of silk and polyester choked around your neck.

We made up that robes or bare feet are weird.

We made up that natural hair on your face or your armpits or your privates is anything besides “there.”

We made up the word “privates” so that genitals could be saved for shamey conversations and for powerful men to control in private.

We made up that you’re supposed to respond graciously when old men talk to you in a way that makes you feel yucky.

We made up that it’s somehow on you when you are hurt by people.

We made up that when you’ve been hurt, you have to forgive.

We made up that forgiveness looks like reconciliation.

We made up that family is for life.

We made up so many damn things about the word “family.”

We made up that it’s okay for people to bully, manipulate, abuse, and take advantage of you, as long as they’re related by blood. We refuse to admit we made that up, but we did and we’re shockingly loyal to it.

We made up that you owe anyone an explanation.

We made up that extroverted is better. And then we learned from some really thoughtful psychologists that that’s not true, so we make all sorts of posts about how awesome introverted is. But we still lowkey judge introverts.

We made up that it’s weird to sleep in a tent in your backyard.

We made up that sleepovers are only for kids.

We made up that kids have to grow up and leave kid stuff behind.

We made up stuffed animals, and this was a good invention that provides so much comfort, and then somewhere between the ages of “7” and “you’re not a child anymore,” we tell people they no longer need comfort.

We made up that you have to be good at dancing to feel confident doing it, and we enforce it by laughing and making fun and sharing videos online.

We made up that everyone gets roads but not everyone gets medicine.

We made up that you should go to college.

We made up that you need to have a clear life and career plan.

We made up that you will be happier if more people think you’re really awesome.

We made up that people think you’re really awesome if they pay attention to you online.

We made up that it’s childish to try to get attention.

We made up that saying things to the people in your life like “Hey I just need some attention right now!” is needy or obnoxious.

We made up that needy is obnoxious.

We made up that crying in front of people isn’t a thing to do.

We made up that you shouldn’t live in the woods.

We made up relationships.

We made up workplace structures.

We made up work.

We made up money.

We made up goals.

We made up purpose.

So if some of what we have made up isn’t quite working for you, that’s understandable. There’s a lot of it. It would be weird if you matched it all, and honestly the world would be pretty boring.

Which bits don’t work for you? And what will you make up for yourself instead?

Sending love and courage to be weirdly, honestly, colorfully you.

PS – We made up that dirt is dirty and that sand is messy and that messy isn’t the best thing in the world. But Junko knows better. I learn a lot from her.

~

How about you and I help each other stay off track? I’ll send you sparks of weirdness. <3

Roots

What are your roots?

And who told you?

Therapy homework one year consisted of writing the letter to my parents that I’d probably never send but always needed to write. At the time, the words gushed like a fresh wound–thousands and thousands and I never even reached the end. At the time, reading what I wrote and sharing bits and pieces became a cathartic therapy for me. It felt a bit like watching the wound scab over. Last week–and I don’t remember why–I pulled the letter up again. This time it felt strangely foreign. Oh I remember every second, but it’s not . . . I just don’t . . . need to remember anymore? It feels a little gratuitous now?

If I decide to go back, I can remember the odd and dizzying experience of trying to find my footing as a 20-year-old in a reality very different than the one I grew up in. Slowly dicing onions with shaking hands, I would contribute some thought to the chatter, something I thought sounded normal, and the whole Chipotle crew would fall silent and turn to look at me a little too curiously. Like I was from a different planet. We’d open the doors to a stream of normal people on their normal lunch breaks, and as I looked down and fidgeted with the tortilla press I would deliver the tense line, “What can I get for you?” over and over until Max stepped in with some brotherly taunting to teach me how to speak terrifyingly confident greetings, like “Well hey there, what brings you in today?!” My shoulders tightened progressively through the day until I ended my shift with a splitting headache and found myself back in bed crying over how completely lost I was.

Memories like these once served a useful purpose in fortifying my rejection of the world I had known where there were no crowds of normal people and I wasn’t allowed to get a job and rarely allowed to go to a friends’ house. The memories helped me prove to others (really so that I could prove to myself) that my childhood had been dysfunctional, that it was a culty experience that left me helpless in the outside world, and that I was right to get out when I could.

But now the memories feel, as I said, a little gratuitous. Like re-watching a bloody surgery I don’t need to re-watch. Reading my letter with its story after story of weird abuse doesn’t seem therapeutic anymore, at least for now. That time of uprooting is done.

We all come with confusing stories about who we are, why we are, where we must be headed, and what is even going on in this strange world. Many of these stories we’ve accepted from others, and they can feel set in stone. The stories speak of values deeply ingrained by our families, or by our cultures large and small. Values we rarely stop to question. Assumptions rooted deep within our psyches. Truths rooted deep within our bodies.

And then when things hit just enough of a chaos point, just enough dissonance and impossibility, just enough crashing and burning–we sometimes get to see that these roots may have been quite arbitrary, and realize it’s time to dig ourselves out.

So we uproot and replant. Or uproot and be blown around a lot and maybe never replant. Life can be hard and is different for each of us.

Uprooting, by the way, is not always a choice and is rarely pleasant. It takes courage and it usually means having hit a low point. So when you see someone uprooted–whether they’re still blowing in the wind or have found different soil–remember compassion.

So what were you told were your roots? Were they really roots for you? And are they still? And do they have to be? And are they allowing you to grow beautifully? Or are they stifling and starving you?

When I wake up in the middle of the night and, with the willpower of a person half asleep and half needing a distraction from the high pollen count, find myself scrolling from Kyiv bombings to missiles in the Korean peninsula to a senator swearing assault rifle regulation is off the table to a rich bully threatening the employees who make him his money to a major news outlet reporting on a major celebrity stating the least sexy thing a guy can do is fart to a money guru tweeting in all caps about the economy crashing and how you need to buy silver . . . it makes me wonder where my roots are?

I think a lot of us these days are finding ourselves tangled in news feeds. Somehow supposed to digest a thousand threats and crises and scandals and tragedies and offenses during an afternoon on the couch. Until we’re left with no willpower and little imagination and just a fizzle of who we were somewhere deep inside, sputtering a little weaker each day.

And then there are those who have a firm foundation from which to accuse and judge and know. Simple arguments and convenient theories and too much confidence and too narrow a window on the world. Some of us live with unquestioned roots that explain everything for us so that we’re not lost and anxious and we know exactly how it will all turn out. Until something drags us down into the street and exposes just how full our society is of things we don’t know, don’t understand, and wish we hadn’t seen, but can’t unsee.

In my experience, the logic-y, dogma-ish roots are too dry and inflexible and they tend to snap when life gets stormy enough. Which may be why despite hundreds of millions of people who are pretty sure they know what’s up, our society seems to blindly stumble from year to year, blaming and blaming and never quite fixing.

And if you also find yourself sleepless some nights, I wonder how your body itself may support you with its own roots in those worried moments. When all the reasons and plans and budgets and jobs and rules and structures and explanations aren’t working for you, maybe your breath will still sustain you like it always has, and your feet will find they’re still rooted to the ground, and you’re still alive, and you’re still here, and you can still touch and taste and see and hear and feel and laugh and cry and hug and dance and sing and do the body things that don’t require a credit score or a stock exchange.

Your feet can’t tell you why the world is the way it is today. Your hands can’t tell you where we’re headed. Your breath can’t change the trajectory of humanity–except that it can calm and center you and that a bunch of you’s make up humanity and that maybe if we all stopped to breathe calmly our trajectory may change. You, though, in your body, right now, can’t solve it all. But I think it’s your chaotic, scrolling brain that is insisting you find all the solutions–not your body. I think your body is just waiting for you to drop in and find the same aliveness and ease that you did as a running and pushing and swinging and bouncing and singing child, before you joined the world of the adults who have to know it all.

Today, your feet and your hands and your belly and your lungs and your movement and your stillness and your ears and your eyes and even your nose and your mouth can be your roots to a different kind of place, a different state. Not one of fixing or judgment or worry or need. One of aliveness, of being. And with those roots you may find some rest and peace.

And while the world needs you to come back to the work from time to time, when you find yourself blowing in the wind I wish you the courage to let the wind blow around you as you feel the ground with your feet and enjoy being a body.

~

Let’s find roots together as we go? Email address below. <3

Why not both?

“Wolde ye bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?”

~ John Heywood, 1546, in his book, A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the english tongue

“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” I’ve actually never appreciated this old proverb. It’s not that I think it’s wrong, just that I think we apply it far too often.

The idea is that once you eat your cake, you won’t have it anymore. I do appreciate this problem, and it is a real problem, because when I buy a quarter pound of Humboldt Fog or a block of real Parmigiano-Reggiano, once I finish eating it, it IS gone, and that sort of hurts deep down in my heart. I’ve tried, but even taking elegantly staged pictures before each cheese-eating ritual doesn’t take the sting all the way away. The memory’s not quite the same once it’s gone.

So yes, once you eat your cake, you don’t have it anymore.

I get that. It’s a quick, over-simplified reminder that “you can’t have it both ways.” That when two options are mutually exclusive, you’ve got to pick one.

But I don’t like that saying!

It seems fair to say “You can’t have your cake and eat it too” to your two-year-old who genuinely CAN’T EVEN because you put her shoes on, and then oh also CAN’T EVEN MORE when you take them back off, because she wants them on AND she wants them off, and yes, those two options are mutually exclusive.

But where do you find yourself applying this concept in your own life? Or when you hear others say it–“you can’t have it both ways”–what is the context?

I bet that you’re pushed to pick between a lot of things that aren’t actually mutually exclusive. They even named a logical fallacy after this: “False dichotomy.”

Here are some examples of false dichotomies, or “false dilemmas,” that we impose on each other and on ourselves:

You can’t love someone and be angry with them.

You can’t take care of both me and yourself.

You can’t make a lot of money and have good work-life balance.

You can’t be a strong leader and be gentle with your team.

You can’t stand for peace and march in protests that sometimes turn violent.

You can’t maximize profits and take good care of your people.

You can’t love and accept your family for who they are and establish strict boundaries.

You can’t be a healthy, happy person and eat lots of yummy food.

You can’t care about poverty and spend weekends on your luxurious boat.

You can’t be a quiet, introverted loner and expect people to respect and listen to you.

You can’t commit crimes and possess a right to dignity and life.

You can’t be happy and sad.

There are even some true dichotomies that, though technically true, might have some really healthy workarounds:

You can’t be married and single. (Yes. But maybe the parts about being single that your soul craves–the freedom of time, the occasional aloneness, the pursuing of your own favorite things, the feeling of independence–maybe you can allow each other the space and the times to live like you’re married and single.)

You can’t have kids and not have kids. (Yes. But maybe you still find healthy ways for mom and dad to go adventure all by themselves. Or maybe there’s a complicated-but-manageable way you can build a regular just-you-and-me date night into your schedule.)

You can’t, technically, be both a full-fledged extrovert and a full-fledged introvert. (True, but the two types have their natural strengths and advantages, and maybe you can incorporate helpful aspects from both styles into your day-to-day life.)

How often do we just accept parts of our lives as all-encompassingly-defining, when if we looked a little deeper we could find workarounds, so that we could have our cake and eat it, too?

This year there are two false dichotomies that jump out at me and, I’m sure, at every other person on the face of this 2020-flavored earth:

You can’t . . . stand for peace and justice and safety and stability, supporting those who serve the cause of keeping people safe from crime and danger . . . AND . . . cry foul on America’s history–past and present–of racial oppression, loudly protesting ongoing brutalization of Black people by many police officers and demanding changes to a system that continues to enable racism and abuse.

Why not both?

Why would being passionate about justice for one group of people make you against justice for another?

Why would saying “We have a problem we need to fix” mean that you wholly reject all the good, throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

Why would saying “I am proud of our police officers who risk their lives to protect people” keep you from saying “But many of them have prejudices that put Black people and other minorities at an unfair disadvantage, and that needs to be changed, and the ones that are consciously hateful and violent should be separated from their power.”

Why does believing in peaceful “law and order” mean that you have to blindly accept the laws in place, instead of acknowledging that, as expressed by Martin Luther King Jr, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

Why can’t you march against police brutality and racism for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and also support your loving, humane, honest, selfless friend who is a wonderful police officer?

A second false dichotomy, courtesy of 2020:

You can’t . . . save the economy, avoid countless permanent closures of small businesses, restaurants, gyms, and airlines, keeping them afloat by providing the funds to help them and their employees ride out a pandemic . . . AND . . . take massive, sweeping precautions to help as many sacred lives as possible make it safely to the other side of this pandemic.

Simply: You can’t take care of the economy AND protect a population from a virus.

Why not both?

Why either or? This world is overflowing with wealth and resources–plenty enough to do good for more than one vulnerable group, to work for more than one cause.

Instead of fighting over whether we’re going to have the cake or eat the cake, what if we just made a bigger cake?

What if the cake is already big enough, but a few people are hogging most of it?

And what if we could put all our energy into sharing the cake and then baking another, but we’re so afraid of losing our piece that we’re just hiding in the corner wolfing down our own share?

Justice and compassion. Progress and people. Us and them.

Why do we keep assuming that we can’t have anything both ways?

Sure, there are a few things in life that you truly have to choose between. But when you feel this pressure to choose between–to pick which cause to support, who to care about, what identity to claim–stop long enough to ask if the two awesome-things are really mutually exclusive or if we really could just make a bigger cake.

The big things, like justice and pandemics. But also the little things, like taking a day off.

Next time someone says “You can’t have it both ways,”

try saying . . .

“Why not both?”

eating my cheese and still having it, too ;)

Hang in there.

If you’re depressed and you stay depressed, you’ll look back at the end of your life and have good memories and bad memories.

If you’re broke and you stay broke, you’ll look back at the end of your life and have good memories and bad memories.

If you’re lonely and you stay lonely, you’ll look back at the end of your life and have good memories and bad memories.

If you’re socially awkward and you stay socially awkward, you’ll look back at the end of your life and have good memories and bad memories.

If you’re anxious and you stay anxious, you’ll look back at the end of your life and have good memories and bad memories.

If you’re human, life will be happy and sad. Good and bad. Peaceful and stressful. Exciting and boring.

So if you’ve been feeling low on hope, hang in there. Sure, aim for more of the good and less of the bad. I don’t mean to belittle the struggle. But remember there are good moments, too. I’m sorry there is going to be lots of hard stuff. That feels very bad. Remember, too, that your life is just as beautiful and important and just as much to be treasured as any other.

Your struggle won’t keep you from having the good memories when you’re old and grey. Maybe it’ll even give you an appreciation for the good that others don’t have. And your good memories will matter just as much as everyone else’s, they’ll be just as valid, just as happy. And they’ll be yours. So find the beauty when you can. Make the memories when you can. And when you can’t, hang in there. I promise life is holding some good memories for you.

~

P.S. You are not alone! So while you’re hanging on through bad days, reach out your hand. And if you ever find your hands slipping, say something! We’re all in this together!

~

Glenn Pickering - people connect at the level of their struggles

Everybody is bad at something

Everybody is bad at something.

I’m really bad at handyman stuff. I don’t know how to fix things or maintain things. Whenever something goes wrong with my car, or something breaks in the house, I feel totally lost. I feel overwhelmed when I have to take care of it. Like I’m out of my depth. I’m always afraid I’ll break it worse. Even if I take my car to the shop, or have someone come do the work for me at home, I feel embarrassed that I have no idea what I’m talking about. I never know if I’m getting ripped off by someone who’s realized they’re dealing with a guy who doesn’t know the difference between an alternator and a radiator.

It’s one of the things I’m bad at. There are lots of things I’m bad at. There are a few big important things that I’m especially bad at and feel very insecure about or even ashamed about. Those big ones I think about a lot.

Do you ever get stuck seeing yourself and your life exclusively through the lens of that one big thing you’re bad at?

 

A while ago I was chatting with a young couple about their big thing: Credit card debt. They were feeling very defeated. Sad, scared, embarrassed, and most of all hopeless. They could have more than paid for a mortgage with their minimum monthly credit card payments. They were searching for options to pay it down quickly and avoid thousands upon thousands in interest payments for years and years, but so far everything had been a dead end. They said they thought about it all the time, and it was constantly weighing them down. It was starting to define their lives.

But this young couple was the sweetest couple you could meet. Their careers were off to a great start. They were stylish and funny. They clearly had the greatest friendship and partnership. In most ways, they were the couple everyone wants to be. All they could see, though, was their debt.

And sometimes all I can see are the things I’ve failed at or the things I’m bad at.

 

I think we forget sometimes–very often in fact–that there is so much more to life than the one big thing we’re bad at. So we’re insecure.

 

Maybe someone has massive debt that they can’t see past, always stressing them out. But maybe that same person has a fantastic career going, one they should be very proud of, and if they focused on that they’d feel confidence and hope.

Maybe someone else without much of a career–still delivering pizzas or washing dishes–maybe that someone is looking enviously and insecurely at that first person with the great career, thinking that if only they were so successful, they’d be happy. But maybe the delivery guy is also fit and athletic, playing sports with friends all summer, hitting the gym every night.

Someone else is watching the athletic guy, wishing they looked like him–that they weren’t overweight, wishing they could go running, or at least climb the stairs without feeling short of breath. They focus on their weight problem until it seems like the only thing in their life. But they’re forgetting they have a couple hard-earned degrees from prestigious universities–an education many people only dream of. They’re smart and well-read. They have a great understanding of politics and current events. They have ‘Harvard’ on their resume and an almost automatic leg up on their professional competition.

And there’s another person who can think of nothing but how badly he wants and needs that education. If only he had taken out the loans to go to school, life would be so much better now. He constantly regrets it and feels inferior to his professional peers. He dreads getting asked where he went to school. But maybe he’s taking for granted what a great family he has. He has a couple kiddos that think the world of him. He gets to come home every night to warm hugs and smiles. And maybe in reality, that can make him a lot happier than a degree.

And maybe there’s someone else who doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t fit in with her siblings and she isn’t respected by her parents. She’s had to move on, and she’s lonely. She sees happy families everywhere and it hurts her. But what if she chose to focus on what she’s good at–the great things in her life? Maybe she gets to go on adventures, exploring the great outdoors, traveling to beautiful cities and exotic mountains.

 

The point is this: There’s always a hole in someone’s heart. There’s always a big thing someone’s bad at. Something they don’t have. Their big insecurity. But that’s never all there is to them.

 

What’s the thing you’re bad at? What’s the sad thing in your life? What’s your big insecurity?

If you find yourself thinking about it constantly, defining yourself by your weakness–you’re not alone. So many of us naturally focus on the sad or bad thing about ourselves.

But there’s also always good stuff. Good stuff we may not be seeing, because we’re so distracted by the bad stuff.

When you’re feeling discouraged about who you’re not, try thinking about who you are instead. There’s amazing stuff there.

Craig Lounsbrough - We focus more on our weaknesses