A "Yes, But" World

“Everything that was good for you is bad for you and everything that was bad for you is good for you.” That was told to Woody Allen in the movie “Sleeper” when he woke up 200 years in the future. I used to quote Woody Allen all the time when he was dating adults. He taught me to separate greatness of achievement from greatness of character.

Now we have a “yes, but” culture. Everything has a “yes, but’ attached to it. “George Washington was great, but he owned slaves. Thomas Jefferson was brilliant but his life belied the lofty ideals of the Declaration of Independence.” There’s even a publishing company that sends out a disclaimer with every copy of the Constitution saying, “this document was written in an earlier time and reflects the values of that time and if written today would be different.” During the Cold War there was a saying in Russia “the future is known it’s the past that keeps changing” that’s what’s happening here. When I taught American history it was much different. We actually had heroes! In the upside down world we live in being proud of your country is no longer politically correct.

America is special. We are not a nation in the usual sense of the term. To be an American is not to be somebody but to believe in something. We are a country founded on an idea. It is a country that still looks to its founding documents for the answers to current problems and those documents are like, we seniors, more layered and deep with the passing of years. The concepts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness don’t age.

When we compare our real country to an ideal that has never existed anywhere, the best becomes the enemy of the good. Our system is horrible except for every other. We do this in our own lives too especially as we age. We can’t appreciate the life we have compared to what we think we could or should have. Don’t “should” on yourself. Happiness isn’t having what you want, it’s wanting what you have. That pursuit of happiness the Declaration talks about begins with gratitude and the age old values -forgiveness, generosity, selflessness, dedication to something larger than oneself that have never been surpassed as the map of a life well lived according to the father of Positive Psychology Martin Seligman.

We live in a time when it is easier to measure more - all you need is a calculator or a W-2 form. We have a version of success defined exclusively in terms of money without any reference to achievement. We have people who are famous just for being famous. Measuring better is much harder it requires values. I believe we already have enough laws we need more good people who grew up with those values to help transmit them to this generation.

Because to quote Woody Allen one more time from his speech to the graduates, “ more than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

My Father, Myself

I grew up with “June is busting out all over” and now I live with “June gloom.”  It used to be said that East Coast life was interesting and in California we made life comfortable.  We passed comfortable a long time ago so we’re all struggling with “interesting”. I’ve always felt that I had the best of both worlds an East Coast upbringing and a West Coast appreciation of life.

My father was a beer truck driver, work was something you had to do but didn't like.  Until the day he died, he never understood my work; he would ask, "You mean people pay you just for listening to them?" He thought it was astonishing that I didn't have to "work" for a living.  I still hear his voice in my head,  the voice of common sense, the voice of “street” with a quip, a put down, a joke. I remember feeling guilty the first time a client gave me a check after a therapy session.

Growing up in the 50's I actually believed that there were families like “Father Knows Best” where the kids had nicknames like “Kitten, Princess and Bud.” When I asked my dad, if we could have nicknames,  he said sure, ”you be “Stop it Stupid” and your brother can be “Stupid Stop It”.  He used humor to trivialize my ideas because he really did believe that father always knew best. There was no difference between his opinion and fact. I spent a good part of my life trying to get the validation I never got from him. (By the way, who doesn’t spend their lives looking for something they think is missing?) One of the gifts of age is now I want to be known rather than validated. Of course, now we also know that “Father” was an alcoholic and Bud was on drugs, in fact, I think we get too much reality now.

Albert Einstein once commented that the most fundamental question we can ever ask ourselves is whether or not the universe we live in is friendly or hostile. He hypothesized that your answer to that question would determine your destiny. Sadly, my father grew up with a Depression, a war and antisemitism.  He saw a world that was filled with challenges rather than blessings. He was a cross between George Burns and Archie Bunker, but said he wasn’t prejudiced because everyone pissed him off equally. When I offered the idealistic world wise view of a college student that’s when he would tell me that I got “A’s in school and flunked street.” Now over forty years later I no longer flunk “street” my thoughts just create a nicer neighborhood.

I am a recovering hostile personality - I stand in the express checkout

line counting the items in the baskets of others, as if God has anointed me to make sure that they follow the rules. I take a deep breath and realize it’s wasn’t God that anointed me it was my Dad. When I was growing up there was no difference.  I adored him then and now I can see and love the man - Picasso was asked if Van Gogh was his favorite because he was the best he said “he wasn’t always the best but he was always Van Gogh. “ My Dad wasn’t always the best but he was always Sidney.  All of my life I have tried to “fit in” and I think my father’s message was to “stick out.”  So thanks to all the fathers who show us with love and humor how to be unique and give our gifts to the world.  

My Mother, Myself

It’s been three years since I’ve been a daughter. As we age we lose more and more of our roles. But the relationship with my mother continues in my head. It remains one of the most profound influences on my life. By the way, I’ve always wondered when parent became a verb instead of a noun. Whenever I want a good laugh I try to imagine my parents, may they rest in peace, exchanging ideas in a parenting class. With fewer choices they were more certain of what they knew. Now there are so many theories that like the man with one clock knows what time it is - but the man with two is never sure.

One role I hope to always have is parent but I didn’t realize I would be parenting into my dotage. My daughter and my 2 grandchildren moved back home briefly when her marriage ended. It’s been said that women measure their self esteem by how the kids turn out. My question is - is there a statute of limitation on “turning out?” I was successful, married, etc. - then I got divorced at 40- did that make my mother a failure? My daughter and son are both going through “challenges” in their 40's does that make me a failure?

My kids were teenagers when I was divorced and I wasn’t there on a lot of levels. Now in their 40's they were complaining about something that happened to them during those years. I said “Look, I did my job! I screwed up the first 20 years of your life; now you have the whole rest of your life to get unscrewed! Just like everybody else. As Carly Simon‘s song says” sorry that your mother dropped you on your head, maybe her mother dropped her too, in the end we all get dropped we all get black and blue.”

Very few of us got what all we needed growing up, we all lived with disappointments. If I had ever gone to my father and said “I’m not happy” he would have said “and your point is?” Yet, now whenever anything goes wrong we go through the song from the show Mame”did he need a stronger hand, did he need a lighter touch?” Many of my friends and clients have adult children, in some cases middle-aged coming back home or never having left. We all should have read the fine print. It used to be that we were supposed to give our children 2 things roots and wings - more and more no one is leaving the nest.

I read an article in the New York Times Magazine a few years ago about how longevity was affecting families, and two stories illustrated the dance that is parenting. The article said that Irving, 77, wanted to retire from his law practice but his 101 year old father came to work every day so “how could he leave?” The story that really struck me was “Natalie has been trying to get her mother’s approval since the Hoover administration.” That says it all - We have the same struggles over and over. It’s not that we’re doing anything wrong - it’s biblical. It is what it is! So no matter how you struggle against it, Oscar Wilde captured that primal paradox when he said “Every woman becomes like her mother that is her curse, no man does - that’s his.
Happy Mother’s Day!

April Showers

Growing up in New Jersey the first warm breeze of April lifted my spirits; now it’s hearing Vin Scully’s voice that triggers memories of brighter days coming. The message of spring is often bittersweet as age strips away much we thought we couldn’t live without. April showers can feel like torrents by the time we get to May flowers. As a counselor sometimes the only thing I can do is hold the umbrella. My life’s work has been to discover ways to go through storms like Gene Kelly, singing and dancing in the rain.

Carl Jung said only paradox can explain life; only paradox can do justice to the injustice of life. That’s why I talk about how a sane response to an insane situation is insane - and that is a wisdom that only comes with age. I have a needlepoint that says “why didn’t all of life’s problems hit me while I was a teenager and I still knew everything.” As we age we start looking for the right questions.

I was reading an interview with Rick Warren and he reminded me of a way to view life - it’s not a roller coaster -it’s like a train. On one track is our pain, struggles, fear and on the other is the joy, blessings and gifts that we have. Everyday we have to decide which track to which to shift. Another story which illustrates this tells of the Indian elder who is teaching his grandson about how each of us have 2 wolves battling inside. One wolf is fear, anger, hatred, and evil - the other wolf is hope, compassion, gratitude and joy. And these wolves constantly struggle for control of our thoughts. His grandson asks which wolf wins and the grandfather replies “the one you feed.”

Three hundred years ago in the villages of Europe , Chassidic rabbis, the people known as “freilich” the “happy ones” were teaching the same message. Our emotions come from our mind. We can’t control our emotions but we can control our thoughts.

So when I read about a 6 week class called Pathways to Inner Joy - a Jewish Guide to Happiness I was there. I always thought Jewish Happiness was an oxymoron, but the Chassidic view is that our only purpose is to serve God joyfully. Therefore, a life lived Jewishly is a life lived optimistically. Imagine that you truly believe that everything that happens to you comes from a loving God who knows what you need at all times. Their genuine joy comes from a profound spiritual awareness of life and living for a purpose.

Sadly, I’m not there yet. I thought I was serving God in an advisory capacity. I’m an optimist out of sheer terror. Maybe I need another incarnation (another revelation -I didn’t know reincarnation was part of Jewish mysticism but it would explain some of my relationships in this life).

Ashley Montaige advised “in terrible times, one must adopt the only tenable position - optimism.” The only difference between an optimist and a pessimist is the story they tell themselves. We can choose to “feed the good wolf” In words that were life changing to me Viktor Frankl learned in the concentration camp that “everything can be taken from a man but the last of human freedoms, the right to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances the right to choose one’s own way”

Lucky Me

I was thinking about St. Patrict's Day and the "luck of the Irish" We associate it with shamrocks, 4 leak clovers, pots of gold and, yet, the Irish have suffered famines, war, starvation and prejudice, Pat Moynihan once said "if your Irish you learn at an early age that the world will break your heart." Their humor and story telling gifts are testaments to their ability to "suffer in style." They personify the advice of mythologist, Joseph Campbell to "participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world."
Seeing the bright side of bad luck is one of the basic psychological traits lucky people possess according to Dr. Richard Wiseman, psychology chair at the University of Herfordshire in England. He wrote a book called “The Luck Factor” and believes that luck can be learned. He claims lucky people think and behave differently and have: the ability to maximize chance opportunities, to listen to "gut feelings," and to expect good fortune.

I’m a very lucky person! Everyone keeps telling me how lucky I am. Once as I was driving on the freeway to the senior center a ladder flew through my windshield. How lucky I was that I wasn’t killed!

    Some years ago my oncologist told how lucky I was that they found my cancer early and I was strong and healthy so I could win that battle ( do healthy people have oncologists?) A few months later I awoke in the middle of the night to a burglar in my bedroom. He was already in my room by the time my old deaf dog alerted me (although he did bark at every policemen who later came to investigate.) I wasn’t hurt and the only thing taken was some cash. One of the officers told me how lucky I was that I wasn’t killed. I said, “I’ve had a run of good luck lately.”

          When I was visiting my mother in Florida we were confronted in her parking lot by two robbers. The one on my side had a gun and said “we just want your purses, if you scream I’ll shoot.” No sooner had he said that than my mother began to scream and hit the one on her side with her purse. Since I was the one following orders I debated whether to point out that she was the one screaming and he should shoot her. Once again I was reminded by the Fort Lauderdale sheriffs how lucky I was.

        Recently I told my brother that the huge tree in front of my house fell down in the last rain storm (I was lucky it fell toward the street and not on the house) he asked me if I had read the book “The Secret”. I haven’t but I knew the premise - our thoughts create our reality and we attract what we expect. The implication - I created this dark cloud over me like Joe Btfsplk in L’il Abner. I won’t take on this “new age guilt” I have enough of the regular kind. There’s a lot of us out here lately with those clouds.

That is one of the main reasons I believe so strongly in the power of support groups. Listening to another’s story enables you to see that you have not been singled out for special punishment. You are not a tragic hero but rather a part of the human comedy.

There’s a story in Jewish tradition that on Judgment Day there is a Tree of Sorrows and everyone can hang their troubles on a branch. Then you can walk around and decide whose troubles you’ll take in place of yours. As we walk around we think “oh, I couldn’t handle that,” “no, that’s too painful.” Eventually, we take back ours and walk away happy with our own troubles. How lucky we are!

Some belated New Year's thoughts

As we mark the passage of another year we take stock.  More and more, I heard  “boy I’m sure glad this year is over.”  We like the idea of fresh beginnings, new starts as if the “next problem isn’t already in the mail.”  I was born on New Year’s Eve and I used to think that the world held a party in my honor. My life has been a process of finding out that not only is it “not about me,” I’m not that special.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said the secret of his success was that at an early age he discovered he was not God. This year learn that you are not God.  Resign as general manager of the universe. I would be even more afraid if I thought I was responsible for the running the world - I thought I was serving God in an advisory capacity.

The good news is we don’t have to change; we have to figure out a way to be happy the way we are, where we are. I once counseled a widow in her 60's who was so unhappy because all the men she was interested in were interested in younger women and the older men were looking for a “nurse or a purse.” She was too old to find someone and, therefore, couldn’t be happy. I encouraged her to hold out and not be happy until she got younger. Of course, it sounds silly when I say it that way, yet, how many of us are unhappy about a something that we can’t change? A common denominator in all emotional pain is the need to change current reality.

What can we change? We can change the conversation we have with ourselves. I’ve often said to my clients that they wouldn’t have a friend in the world if they talked to others they way they talk to themselves.  Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Therapy says we’re talented at upsetting ourselves -“we’re are talented screwballs who are anxious about being anxious and depressed about being depressed.”

Another source of pain is the past.  Linus says to Charlie Brown, “it’s wrong to be worrying about tomorrow we just need to focus on today.” Charlie says, “no, that’s giving up I’m still hoping yesterday will get better.”  We laugh when we hear that ,yet, I see many people who hold on to things from the past that cause unhappiness in the present.

All we have is this moment, the now. It doesn’t matter how many years we have left - we all have the same amount of time -right now and it’s how you spend your “nows” that will determine your happiness.  Don’t save something for a special occasion, every day is a special occasion; there are no ordinary moments.  According to Jewish tradition, one of the questions  you will be asked questions when you die is  “did you partake of all of life’s allowed pleasures?”  I’m working on it. I have Simple Pleasure Cards where I list my favorite sights, smells, sounds, tastes, things to touch. Just thinking of Louis Armstrong singing “It’s a Wonderful World”,for example, can add joy, gratitude, appreciation to my life.

Become an inverse paranoid and look for all the examples of the good things the world does for you. Focus on your blessings, accomplishments and gifts.What you give your attention to grows.  The worst thing would be to be happy and not know it. You don’t want to be like Colette who said “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wished I’d realized it sooner. Begin now!                                                                                                     

If Love is the Answer

Lily Tomlin asks “if love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question? “ We all have struggled with family relationships and love. As a marriage counselor I am a relationship expert whose longest stable relationship is with a bearded collie, a Scottish Sheepdog. My significant other has fleas. I certainly don’t live a perfect life with all the answers but I have spent over 25 years living intimately with 100's of families. I see how difficult it is to connect and,yet,how vital it is to our happiness.

The choice of a life partner is the most important decision we make. As Socrates points out “by all means marry, if you get a good wife you'll be happy. If you get a bad one you'll become a philosopher.” Your chances are only as good as your choices. In fact, that’s one of the reasons that Beardies and I have lasted for over 30 years, I went to dog shows, researched different breeds, and temperaments. Yet, when I chose my ex husband I went for big arms, hopefully because I was 17 at the time.

I’ve learned over the years what works and what doesn’t. Ironically, most of the happy marriages I see are in my bereavement group where one of the partners is dead. Oh course, that is somewhat disingenuous because only people who are having relationship problems come to counseling but as you know you often learn more from what doesn’t work. For example, we know the 4 horsemen of divorce are criticism, defensiveness, contempt and withdrawal.

We’re now studying happy marriages too and know that there are 5 times more positive interactions for every negative one in good relationships. There is also much to be learned from our pets. The unconditional acceptance (since living with Mulligan all my annoying habits have disappeared) allows us to be ourselves which is a prerequisite for connection - this acceptance allow us access to our own tenderness and we feel better about

ourselves.