Heroes R Us

Been thinking about superheroes and justice and why even grownups seem to need both. Can’t say I’ve come to a definitive conclusion, but I’m increasingly convinced of an old hypothesis of mine… that somewhere in our makeup is the need for justice and balance in life.

It’s why I didn’t become a “real” lawyer, you know. Because my view of justice is so darned idealized that no legal system in the world would satisfy me. I could just see myself leaping over the judge’s desk, going after his or her throat after yet another moronic decision not to grant a protective order, or some such thing.

It’s come up recently because of the 23-year-old newlywed who was stalked and killed by an old (old enough to be her grandfather) customer just a few days after a judge postponed the decision on whether to grant her request for a protective order. I'm not blaming the judge and, yes, I know the protective order can only do so much; it’s just the whole idea that pushes me over the edge. Did I mention I have a 23-year-old daughter myself? So this one hit home….

But back to the justice thing… I’m also starting to believe that the reason we are drawn to fictional superheroes is because being a hero is also part of our makeup. Not only is it something we want to be – it’s something we are capable of. Okay, maybe we can’t leap over tall buildings in a single bound, but we can each be a hero to SOMEBODY. The thing is, in order to really help others we have to wrap up our personal pity party. You know the one… where we go over and over everything that’s ever gone wrong, every injury we’ve ever suffered, every time we’ve ever failed. What? You’re gonna tell me I’m the only one? Didn’t think so.

Because I’ve been through certain disasters (large and small), and because I’ve bothered to do the hard work of learning and healing and letting go, I can now bring at least a little hope to others in the middle of their own catastrophes. Sometimes I can even do more than that. I doubt I’ll ever be a bona fide hero, the kind that gets their face on the news and children named after them. And I really don’t care about that.

Here’s what I do care about: when I was about 12, I decided that my life would only have been worthwhile if the world were somehow different due to my existence; at least a little bit different for at least one other person. It was all about justice, you see… I realized even then that over the course of my life I would be consuming a tremendous amount of natural resources and going through a whole lot of pain. It only seemed fair to give back to the world and to turn the pain into something useful.

And then I got older and realized it wasn’t all about me. There’s a funny story that defines an optimist as someone who can look at a pile of manure under the Christmas tree and happily squeal, “With all this poop, there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!” I see people all the time who are still trapped beneath a pile of life’s manure. Each time, I think, “Having been through all this, there’s got to be a hero in here somewhere!”

Here’s to the hero in you, who recycles the bad cards that have been dealt to you into life and healing and hope for yourself and others. Cheers!

Failing to Love

Blew it already.

So we’re barely into February and I’ve already blown my New Year’s resolution. It’s okay, I just gotta get back on that horse now…

I’ve been thinking lately about failure. Maybe because the concept is mentioned in every other magazine article I see. But it is a legitimate subject for those interested in the development of their character. How do you react to failure – your own or someone else’s? And how do I?

“Resistance is futile” say the Borg in Star Trek land. Actually, we surely should resist failure until it happens. But once it has happened, what’s the point of fretting over it? This from someone who has spent a good chunk of her life kicking herself around the block several times whenever one of her endeavors is less than a total, unqualified success. And yet, I’m learning that failure at least proves I don’t spend my life sitting on my rear, avoiding risk. Guess that’s a good thing, right?

But my character is still somewhat underdeveloped when it comes to handling the failures of others. Let’s try that again. It’s not their failures that bother me, it’s when they feel sorry for themselves afterward and I’m expected to cheer them up. “What? First you fail to help me and now I have to work to cheer you up? Really?”

When, oh when, will I be a more loving person? When will others be able to fail me AND to feel sorry for themselves and still count on receiving my forgiveness and grace and love?

So here I fail, and must resist the urge to feel sorry for myself in the midst of this love-failure. Maybe I need to make another resolution… to resolve (again) to love bigger and better. As for you, if I have failed to love you in your times of failure, please forgive me. Let us both risk again.

Year of Discovery

A colleague on Facebook asked for a word to describe what we want from 2010 – in ONE word! My word for this year is “discovery”. I have to resist the urge to think about stuff before I answer questions like these. Fortunately, I’ve learned (slowly) how to listen to my gut/instinct instead of my overly-analytical brain, but it still takes conscious effort. It’s a bit of mental gymnastics… this thinking about not-thinking… you try it!

So now the aforementioned analytical brain is chewing on that word: discovery. What? You think I can resist thinking/analyzing forever? Thinking is in my blood….

Precisely what do I want to discover this year? Well, what’s next professionally, for one thing. And what’s next in personal relationships, particularly the relationships with my adult kids. But more than the results of this discovery, I’m looking forward to the process.

I hate not knowing what’s next. Hate it! That’s because there have been too many painfully unpleasant surprises in my life. But wonderful things have also happened, so I choose to look at the coming year through those lenses instead… anticipating the good surprises to come. If there’s one thing life has taught me is that I will be able to roll through the nasty stuff, get back up, and dust myself off – with the help of friends and family and others who are rooting me on. If you are one of those – thank you for helping me learn to have faith in the uncertain future. It’s been a long, hard road.

It's About Time

So I’m a week late…. I was busy! Today I’m thinking about New Year’s resolutions because I have finally come up with mine. And every year I ask myself “Why am I even DOING this?” I mean, year after year, more often than not, I tend to keep resolutions for only a few days. But after several dozen new years of asking myself that question… by golly, I think I’ve got it!

I believe we humans make resolutions because we desperately need hope. It’s the oxygen of our souls. In our culture, the end of one year tends to prompt a review of everything that happened in the past twelve months. Well, crap. Most of the time, this is just too much. Maybe a whole lot of good stuff happened that we are now afraid to lose, or we’re afraid we won’t “live up to” the previous year. Yeah, right. More often, this review of all the messes is what turns our stomach. And now the clouds start to gather: what if next year is just as bad?

It’s a good thing we didn’t go through all the bad stuff at once, huh? But then, in the year-end review, we re-experience it all in the space of a minute, overwhelming ourselves. So… quick!!!! We reach for something, anything, that will help us feel like we have some sort of control over the new year. Why do I resolve to exercise? Well, yeah, I want the fitness benefits of exercise, but that’s not what I usually get, because I don’t stick with it. Usually, I have settled for the HOPE that I will lose the weight, breathe easier, or whatever. That’s right, I could have the real thing (health) but I settle for what I need the most at the moment (hope).

That’s kind of like being happy with monopoly money instead of working for the real thing. So should we just give up on hope? No, of course not. That’s like not breathing. Let’s see if this year I have finally come up with a real resolution instead of a something-that-gives-me-hope resolution. Stay tuned -- and stay hopeful.

Brave New World... and a Fascinating One Too

So yesterday was my first birthday after joining Facebook. I've lost track of how many birthday wishes I received online... from relatives I haven't seen in twenty years to colleagues I only barely know. And it felt good. I was smiling all day. Which got me to thinking about this "social media" world and relationships and vulnerability and stuff like that.

I've also started studying social media from a professional standpoint to help nonprofits connect with their people. A key to getting along in this quirky little world seems to be to give, give, give and trust that others will respond in kind. We give links to our favorite funny videos, we share our outrage over political bungling, we applaud each other constantly, we share our triumphs and also our struggles.

I struggle over the struggle-sharing. How much is too much? When do we cross the line from sharing to whining? And, just how vulnerable do I really want to be? It's one thing to share my self-doubts or hurts with my close friends, quite another to put them out there for consumption by people with whom I have not had enough real-world interaction to know whether I can trust them with my pain. Often, as I type I'm thinking "will this come back to bite me later?"

I have one comfort, and offer it to those who share my reluctance to open up in public writings. I tend to be a "real" person - or so I have been told. Sometimes I'm too direct, and it can make others uncomfortable. I'm learning how to moderate that.... But so long as I am not showing one face to my friends and quite another to my professional contacts and still another to my family... well, then, I guess I won't have to face that imagined future episode where the Integrity Police shine a spotlight in my face while yelling "wait, on Facebook two years ago you said something quite different - you hypocrite!"

But maybe I am most afraid to be vulnerable in front of ME. Maybe I don't trust myself to be uniformly real, genuine, sincere. Maybe my insatiable inner critic still has more power over me than I'd like to admit. Maybe it isn't others that I'm most worried about. Hmmm. Does that make me a hypocrite after all?

Imagine it Better

Some people have the gift of imagination, and they usually know it. Others have the gift of faith, but many don’t know it. Here’s a good test: do you spend a lot of time worrying about or imagining things that have not happened yet? That’s the gift of faith turned inside-out. Clothes don’t look too good when worn that way, and neither does faith. In fact, it doesn’t look like faith at all but that’s exactly what it is.

The difference between imagination and faith? It’s much like movies. Most merely help you pass the time, but some actually move you – you are no longer the same person after having seen that movie. I think Chariots of Fire was one of those changing movies for me, a long time ago. I know It’s a Beautiful Life falls in that category for many people, particularly those of us who have longed for death. And that’s how it is with faith, whether the faith manifests as fear or hope – it changes us.

I know a young man who, as a small child, was absolutely fearless. All of life was one big adventure, waiting for him to explore it. But he has grown up in a fear-filled household and now he’s afraid to try anything new. It’s sad. The environment of fear has changed him, I'm hoping not permanently.

Here’s the funny thing: we have no more evidence that bad stuff will happen than we have for the hope that we will have good results. No, really, we don’t. It seems that way because we remember –in excruciating detail- every failure, every embarrassment, every injury we have ever suffered or witnessed. For some reason, remembering the good times doesn’t come as naturally.

At one point in my life, I decided to be rational about this. Today, the very idea of being rational about faith/fear seems pretty funny, but hey, it worked for me at the time. Whenever I would begin to become overwhelmed by worry (that’s the socially-acceptable name for fear), I would draw a line down a sheet of paper. On one side I would write down all the bad stuff that could happen regarding the situation at hand. Then I would write down all the good stuff that could happen. I would force myself to keep writing until I filled the "good" side. Inevitably I would stall after the first couple of lines but, if I pressed on, the list on the good side would grow and grow. It became much easier for me to take risks when I could see all of the potential benefits.

As a young child I promised myself that once I was an adult, I would never live in fear again. It took about twenty years after reaching adulthood for me to begin to feel safe, even in my own home. And that fear bug still bites once in a while, but I don’t live there anymore.

Are you living in fear? Move out. We think that by worrying we keep ourselves safer but that’s a lie. The gift of faith was meant to be used for something much more glorious than the illusion of personal safety.

Turning the Picture Around

Whether you're a father or not, I'm hoping you will read the rest of this. In fact, whether or not you've had a father, have a father, like fathers, or think the whole idea of "fatherhood" is, well, a crock... I sense there’s something important for you in here.

And here's why: because I see most people making the same mistake my dad made with his life. Not just with how he played the father-role with me and with my siblings, but more importantly how he played his role in the world. I don't think he knew he had a role.

My dad was generally a good, honest man who thought his role was to do his professional work well, and to take care of the house and the finances at home. In fact, he was a bit enlightened for his generation (born in 1926) because he also felt somewhat responsible for taking care of my mom's health and her sense of security. You would have to have known my mother to grasp what a tall order that was! They're both gone now, but I find myself on this Father's Day reflecting on what my dad did for me and realizing how clueless he was in some ways about his own influence. And I suspect you and I are just as clueless, at least most of the time. If you don't think so, you must still be under 30 years of age. :)

Dad believed parenting was to be done by the mother. Unless the mother called the father in to "have a talk" with a wayward youngster (read: I got less than straight-As so I needed that lecture about the right path and wrong path in life). He had no clue about a child's physical, cognitive, emotional or spiritual needs. He certainly had no idea about his ability and responsibility to address those needs. He brought home the paycheck and then stayed out of the way. It was safer that way, and it was all he knew.

My main memory of my dad is him walking away while my mom, uhmm … “let me have it”. But that's not the whole picture, and, as I come to terms with it (which has taken decades), the other pictures are starting to come back into focus. It's like they were all stuck behind the one 8 X 10 of his failure to protect me. Here are some of the other snapshots, the ones I took out today in honor of Father's Day, and of my dad:

When I was little, I was frustrated because other kids seemed to know what they were good at and this helped them know what they would be when they grew up. I was good at a lot of things. That was no help! Finally, in sixth grade, Ms. Taylor came up with a Creative Writing exercise where we would pull an index card out of a little box and write a short story based on whatever title was typed on that index card. I remember two: "The Time Capsule" and "How the Turtle Got its Shell." Now, the story I wrote about the turtle could only have been written by someone who has been repeatedly mistreated, but nobody picked up on this at the time. Here is what's most important: my dad thought it was very good writing and he saved the story. For a child who never received any praise, this was HUGE. Maybe I was finally extra-good at something! Snap.

Zoom out a few years and I'm a depressed, over-achieving, ulcer-suffering, high school senior. One day, my mom and I walk into Dad's office during the work day. We never did this before, so I guess we must have been dropping something off... In any case, I meet his office manager for the first time and she almost squeals in delight - like a teeny-bopper meeting a rock star. "Ohhhh! It's YOU! Your dad is so proud of you!" WHAT?

"Yes, you're the editor of the high school paper, right? He brings in everything you write and he passes it around so we all get to read it. You're very good." Snap.

I'm still surprised they didn't have to call an ambulance crew to pick me up off the floor.

I was so shocked and confused and angry about his silence at home (when I so badly needed affirmation) that it has taken me lo these thirty years to realize how that moment drove me to keep on writing, keep on trying, keep on believing I had something to say.

So, uhm, thank you - Papi. Thank you for recognizing my little talent, thank you for being proud of me, thank you for sharing that joy with others even while you were simply unable to share it with me. I miss you.

And, for the rest of us who are still here... we never know what role we will play for the people who cross our paths. I don't even remember that office manager's name. But she was able to reveal something I needed to know. She’s the one who took the picture that I pulled out today, and I wish I could thank her. Instead, I hope this pays it forward..