My Two Favorite Words

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

Like a great novel, every life has a theme.  There is a driving purpose in the story arc of our existence.  Determining that focus may be the key to that one admonition of every great thinker and writ most succinctly by Aristotle — “Know thyself.”

In my life, two words keep showing up in a myriad of ways.  Not just the words, but the very concepts.  I believe that if something shows itself to you again and again, it might just be trying to get your attention.

The first word is “integrity.”  Personal integrity is the most precious possession of any human, in my humble opinion.  As I have explained it to every class I have ever had the privilege to teach, “Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.”  It brings the sleep of babes.  It generates respect and trust.  It creates legacies.

I have always been guided by the beacon of integrity.  And sometimes it has cost me.  Living a life of integrity does not necessarily equate to success as the world so often defines it.  But it does equate to a personal success that exceeds the financial holdings of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett combined.  If your only motivation is money, then you will likely be asked to compromise your integrity at some point.  If your motivation is integrity, then every dollar you earn will be as solid as a brick of gold.

Yes, I’ve tried to live with integrity.  And sometimes I have failed.  I have sometimes worked against the grain of my own story’s theme.  I have delved into subplots that derail the focus.  But with failure comes lessons.  Integrity is only ruined if you miss the opportunity to recognize your own lack of integrity.

Whether I was living with integrity or momentarily distracted, there have been events in my life which were challenging, . . . difficult, . . . okay, they just felt bad.  But every single devastating moment in my life brought a message, often a vital message, that improved and strengthened me.  That brings me to my other favorite word:

Serendipity.

You can think of serendipity as a “happy accident.”  It is that event in your life which initially seems downright horrible but which ends up bringing the most precious gift.  When you are laid up from an injury and then discover in your weeks of healing boredom that you need to reprioritize your life — that’s serendipity.  When you are fired from your job and discover that you suddenly have time to go back to school like you always wanted and are brought back to a place where dreams are no longer blocked by a steady paycheck — that’s serendipity.  When you endure a devastating miscarriage that seems to have no possible rhyme or reason but then your spouse undergoes brain surgery and will require your constant care for the next several months — that’s serendipity.

There is one vital difference in these two words.  Integrity is created, protected, and nurtured solely by you.  Serendipity can only be recognized.  But here is something I’ve discovered: Integrity will help you see serendipity.

The truer you are to yourself, the more you know yourself, . . . the more you will see the rhyme, the reason, the theme, the purpose of this life.

Even when it hurts.

Life is a Wonder, Woman

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

I recently attended our local Pride Celebration.  I walked through the crowd and filled the reusable bag I received from one vendor with all the freebies I snagged from the others.  I didn’t pay much attention to it all until this morning when I needed to make a grocery list.  I remembered there were several notepads among the handouts, so I reached in the bag and grabbed one.

I had written “frozen blueberries, apple juice, bananas, toilet paper” before I began to actually notice the writing on the notepad.  It was from an attorney’s office (all too appropriate, as you will soon learn).  The writing and lines were all in red — brilliant, fire-engine, angry red.  The heading said, “My Crisis List,” with the word “crisis” in a big thunderbolty font.

I leaned back and put my pen down.  No, this just would not do.  Why would anyone want to create that kind of list?  Perhaps an attorney wants you to have items in this category, but . . . really??? 

I had a dilemma.  The greenie inside me could not just throw away a perfectly usable pad of paper.  What to do, what to do.  I stared at the pad for a few minutes and then had an idea.  I got a red pen out of the drawer and scribbled until the “c” and the “r” were no longer readable.  I had changed my CRISIS list to my ISIS list.

Some might wonder whether a few letters on a page are really important enough to matter.  I think they do.  But even if they don’t, that’s not really the point.  The point is that the universe gave me a wonderful message that I have a choice.  I spent several moments in the conscious awareness that I can determine whether to live in a place of crisis or a place of power.

And this is a gift that keeps on giving.  Now I have a ready reminder each time I rip off my old sheet and focus my energy on deleting “crisis” from my life as I begin a new list and a new day.

At the bottom of each sheet is the attorney’s website.  It’s www.(attorney’s name)bankruptcy.com.  Ah, now it made such brilliant marketing sense.  But, I’m scratching out that part too.  It just isn’t information an Egyptian goddess needs.

Oh, Mighty Isis!

Mom’s Advice for Everything

~ Deb ~ 4 Comments

Several years ago, a tiny book called Life’s Little Instruction Book was a best-selling phenomenon.  H. Jackson Browne wrote the book as a gift to his son who was going to college.  If you were alive on this planet 20 or so years ago, you know of this book.  It was everywhere.  I had the privilege of briefly working for the original publisher of the book, jokingly referred to by those of us in marketing as “The House that Jack Built.”

It was such a simple and rather obvious concept.  Despite its simplicity (or maybe because of it), the book spent almost a year at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List.  Copycat publications began to fall like rain behind it.

As a young writer, I longed for that kind of publishing success and wracked my brain trying to create a similar premise for a book.  Creating the simple is often the most difficult task.

With Mother’s Day just behind us, I’ve been thinking about my mom.  Well, of course.  In the story arc of my time with my mother, what she has taught me is not exactly conducive to book form.  Sure, she has given me quite a few lessons over the years, but there is a definite and predominant theme which would ultimately be the whole of any literary endeavor built around her wisdom.  It has been my mother’s answer to everything:  “Get up and move around; you’ll feel better.”

When I feigned sickness to avoid school as a child, that was her swift reply.  I suppose some mothers might feel a forehead or sit at the edge of the bed in pursuit of further information about the purported illness.  Not mom.  As she would zip through my room, probably putting away freshly folded clothes or (often) running a vacuum cleaner as my alarm clock, she would fling the phrase over her shoulder.  No matter how pathetic I made my plea sound, her response was the same: “Get up and move around; you’ll feel better.”

And the part I couldn’t easily admit as a child was that she was almost always right.  Even when I did have some aches or pains which might have justified my complaint, usually if I just started moving they began to dissipate.

Over the years, I have heard my mother’s voice echoing in my brain on many occasions.  When I was ill or depressed or just in a general funk, I could hear my mother advocating her cure for everything.

When life felt untenable and just generally bigger than me, “Get up and move around; you’ll feel better.”  When a job or my checkbook or the mess in the garage seemed out of control, “Get up and move around; you’ll feel better.”  When my heart or my spirit or my hope was broken, “Get up and move around; you’ll feel better.”

It’s no secret that exercise can combat depression.  My mother knew that far before it became the conventional wisdom of mental health, though in her eyes exercise is a waste of precious time you could actually use to work and accomplish something.  Of all the great wisdom in the world she could have passed on, in her endlessly pragmatic way my mother gave me the one piece that is actually useful in most situations.

I hope my mother is on this earth for many more years.  But, when the time should come for her to slip this mortal coil, this will be my vote for her epitaph: “Get up and move around; you’ll feel better.”

Don’t Cry Over Spilled Karma

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

So, here is the order of events:  I stopped at the ATM yesterday to have some cash on hand to tip my massage therapist.  Because the ATM only spews out twenties, and because I don’t want to set a $20 tip precedent with the aforementioned therapist, I stopped at a convenience store to get a Coke and thus break a twenty.

In front of the convenience store was a man in fatigues sitting at a table collecting money for The Wounded Warrior Project.  Now, I’m all for taking care of returning veterans.  I think we should provide medical care and housing assistance and education and just about any need for those who are willing to put their lives on the line for the pittance we pay them to do that.  But, I have a natural resistance to people asking for money at the entrance to stores.  It’s such a deeply seated antipathy for me that I’m not even fond of the Girl Scouts when they do that.  Yeah, I know.  I’m a jerk.

Getting accosted as I’m entering or leaving a store is just something I don’t like.  It’s bad enough that the WalMart greeters make me feel like a criminal when they eye my cart as I’m leaving the store.  Having my social conscience mauled by the cause of the week takes me over the edge.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am generally a quite generous person.  Even if I’m irritated by the spoken or even silent request, I usually give something.  The non-politically-charged issues are easiest.  Children raising money for new Little League uniforms?  Absolutely.  Salvation Army bell ringers during the holidays?  Hmmm . . . no, I almost never give to religious organizations as most of them have judgments I find unspiritual.  Homeless person on the side of the road?  Sure, most of the time, if I have some cash on hand.

Two bucks.  That’s my standard.  If someone needs it, and I feel good about giving it, then I’ll pull out two bucks and wish them well.

When I entered the convenience store, I only had twenties, of course.  I nodded at the gentleman and mumbled something about needing to get change.  By the time I got my Coke and paid, I had actually forgotten all about his presence, so I was taken a bit off guard when I saw him again.  I almost walked past, but then I stopped and turned around and reached for my wallet.  As I fumbled for two bucks, I had a nice little chat with the gentleman.  He told me about Wounded Warriors and mentioned some of the celebrities involved.  He said that Bill O’Reilly talks about it all the time.  I said that I didn’t care for Bill O’Reilly, but I would give some anyway and smiled.  He backed away from the statement and claimed he didn’t actually watch Bill O’Reilly, but he had just heard that.  I put my money in the jar and wished him well.

I had a few minutes to kill before my massage was to begin, so I stopped in the bookstore.  I had taken $40 out of the ATM, so had the cash available when I found yet another book I just couldn’t live without and probably wouldn’t actually read.  I opened my wallet to pay for the book.  There were a few ones and the ten for my massage tip.  I riffled through the bills for a few seconds and then it dawned on me.  I had mistakenly put a one and a twenty into the donation jar for the Wounded Warriors.

For a brief moment, I had that sinking feeling you get when you don’t have money you thought you had.  I went through a brief analysis of how to retrieve the money and reached a conclusion within about 2.3 seconds that it was simply gone.  I had donated $21 to the Wounded Warrior Project in spite of myself.

As I laid on the massage table a bit later, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that I actually had two legs which could be rubbed and manipulated and pounded into relaxed muscular submission.  And two arms.  And a fully functioning body, even as much as I took it for granted.  I thought about those returning wounded veterans, many of whom could probably benefit from a therapeutic massage, and all of whom gave a precious part of themselves in service to our nation.

As I lay on the massage table, I fully released my internal grip on that twenty.  By the time Kevin patted my shoulder and said, “We’re done; I’ll be waiting for you outside,” my only regret was that I hadn’t given the twenty deliberately.

I left the ten in the tip envelope for Kevin, scheduled my next massage, and walked out into a bright, breezy day with a relaxed body, an empty wallet, and a full heart.  As non-religious as I am, I couldn’t help but think of the words of St. Francis of Assisi: “It is in giving that we receive.”  It is how we become instruments of peace in a warring world.