Author: Bev

I began this column thinking about Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan from the Bible’s book of Luke.  Pretty much everybody knows the gist of this moral story about loving your neighbor.

There is no question that the Samaritan demonstrated kindness toward a person not of his or her own group.  The two were strangers, truly “others,” from groups historically hostile toward one another.

One might think of these two individuals as symbolic of left versus right political groups, for instance.  The story doesn’t say much about the thieves who attacked the one needing help.

Sociologically, when a culture has a clear outside enemy such as in times of war, their petty squabbling amongst themselves becomes diminished.  They have someone or something to band together against.

I want to consider the thieves as well as the one who was helped.  Let’s, for a moment forget about the Good Samaritan, the Jewish priest who crossed the street, and the Levite from yet another tribe who also crossed the road to avoid the nearly dead man who needed someone’s help.

Why aren’t we mad at the thieves who created the whole mess of the beaten-up man?  We’re a little angry at the Jewish priest and the Levite because they walked away without helping.

I want to know what happened to the one who needed help.  Once he/she was helped, their wounds healed, and back to their usual, everyday routine, what kind of person did they become?

Another related Scripture from the book of Luke, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” might be the enlightened philosophy of “the one helped.”  I say, enlightened, because we tend to really “get it” when it happens to us.

Many years ago, a man, not necessarily considered a good man by some, or many people, anonymously gave something to our family, that we really needed, when we really needed it.  It was anonymous, but we knew who gave the gift.

Not many people knew our need.  We didn’t advertise it.

Not only did that act of generosity and kindness meet a concrete need, it instilled a “pay it forward” attitude and a ripple effect in us, “the ones helped.”  Now, many years hence, I try to do similar acts of kindness, commensurate with my abilities, to others, as unembellished as possible.

The effects of acts of kindness can last forever, throughout generations.  Kindness can be your legacy.

I wonder if people who have never had an unmet need will have the same understanding of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” as “the one helped.”  None of this precludes the existence of thieves (John 10) who are here to “kill, steal, and destroy.”

Given the vagaries of human nature, often a kindness extended won’t be returned like for like, in a direct exchange.  In fact, that same person who met our need so long ago, turned on us with a nasty exchange later on.

However, nothing can erase the original act of kindness.  It’s out there.

Don’t regret a spurned act of kindness.  It will return to you some other time by some other person or circumstance.  There are simply universal laws of return which will be demonstrated sooner or later.  Just wait for it.

My husband is the king of options.  I’m the opposite, queen of quick decisions and quite okay with option number one.

I typically know right off the bat what I like and what I can live with.  My husband, on the other hand, has to explore multiple options, ad infinitum.  He does research (did I mention that he has a PhD.) until I’m literally sickened by the detail circus he’s produced.

This man makes me crazy on a daily basis with his options.  He really should assign that lovable “crazy” emoji to my name in his phone contacts, for exchanging text messages and phone calls.  Instead, he uses the “love blowing a kiss” one; and the chorus said, “Awh.”

I’ve made plenty of wrong choices and hasty decisions in my life, but none of them have been outrageously disastrous.  But my right decisions have far outweighed the wrong ones.  I married the right man, didn’t I?

Is it better to have multiple options?  Or are we better off with limited choices to weigh?

Then there’s second guessing yourself.  “Darn it, I chose option B when I might have been better off with option C.”  Rarely, do I harbor feelings of regret over the choices I’ve made.

How can you know which choice would have been, could have been, better?  Is hindsight the same thing as experience?  And do we learn from both?

Can you learn to live well with your choices?  Decorating or landscaping choices are never a problem in our household.  It’s our philosophy that one can always repaint, move the furniture, or find a new place for a shrub if our first selection doesn’t sit well with us in the long run.

However, I’m sort of famous in my family for not being happy with my menu choices.  I often look longingly and mouthwateringly at my table partner’s food choices and regret what I chose.  But there have also been some winners.

So, what’s on the menu?  I wrestle with options.  I guess that’s why nine out of ten of my dreams are situated in restaurants, where I am a patron.

Choices.  I’m just happier with fewer of them.

With clothing, I consider myself fortunate that most of the time I’m happy with my purchases.  But there were a notable few times when I asked myself, “what were you thinking, woman?”

It’s usually with the most expensive clothing purchases that I’ll get home and question my choice.  More than once an item has gone unworn to the donation bin three months after I was sure I’d love it and it’s too late to return it.  That one pair of black shoes lasted a year.

True story – I once found the cutest animal print dress in a store, forty miles from home.  I debated and debated whether to buy it.  It was a tad on the expensive side so I declined, until I got home.

I called the store and asked them to hold it for me, made a special trip back to the store, and bought it.  It still hangs in my closet unworn, with the tags on it.

I’ve yet to find the occasion to wear that dress.  I think it may have been a bad choice.  Time will tell, I guess.

If you ever see me wearing a rather form fitting animal print dress, you’ll know that it worked out in the end.  Sometimes you just don’t know if your choices were good, until the end.

I couldn’t be happier with my choice of spouse, he with his unending options and me with my quick decisions.  And yet he still drives me to distraction with his options.  I’m certain that we will remain together until the end, the only option worth considering for the both of us.

 

“Is it really cold in here, or is it just me?  A generalization refers to a point of view, assumed to be nearly universally held, common to most, or usual, without considering specifics.  “Does everybody like this music, because I really don’t.”

“Is it just me,” is maybe a rhetorical question, where you don’t expect an answer.  But it’s more likely a statement of belonging to a certain group of people who think alike.  The generalization of the question, “is it just me,” is that you assume that the answer is no.

We all need to feel a part of some group, whether it’s family, community, country, an organization, professional or work group, or social club.  Even if your group is a bunch of introverts, you belong to a group of somebodies.

As an essayist, it’s probably common that I think mostly in generalizations.  For example, if I think a certain way, about a certain thing, I might assume that “most” people think that way too.  Clearly, I don’t think it’s just me who thinks that way or has experienced a particular circumstance, or I wouldn’t be sharing my opinion widely.

However, I am fully aware that generalizations can be dangerous.  They can lead to hatred toward an individual because they belong to a group that you don’t like.

When referring to people, perhaps we should err on the side of sensitivity and not generalize, but stick to specifics. People are too multi-faceted to generalize about them.  They might surprise you.  I hope they do.

When I think that some of us or even most of us have gone through the same thing or feel the same way, I realize that not ALL of us have.  If you read or hear someone generalizing about a group you belong to, and you don’t fit the description, don’t take offense, turn the page, flip the channel, click “NEXT.”

On the contrary, if I think that everybody agrees with me, or should agree with me, about something, I’m naïve, narcissistic, and self-centered.  Or, not as generously, perhaps I’m a bigoted arse, as the English say.

I don’t care what one says, there will always be someone, if not a bunch of people who don’t get it, see it, or even know what you’re talking about.  This is a case of, if it doesn’t apply to you, move on.

I’m aware that one should not assume that everybody agrees with what I think.  For example, because as a woman, I think a certain way does not mean that all women think that way.  If I’m a certain age and feel a certain way, doesn’t mean that all people of the same age feel the same way.  My husband does a certain thing, it doesn’t mean that all husbands do that.

Most things can be generalized, as long as we’re aware that there are always exceptions.  For example, most people will be unhappy with torrential rain.  Also, most people will probably prefer a sunny day over an overcast day.  Most people will agree that puffy white clouds against a blue sky are cheerful and a gray sky is ominous.

This reminds me of my college social science statistics course.  My biggest takeaway from that class was the difference between cause and effect, and correlation.  In a way, most of our generalizations are based on cause and effect thinking. 

For example, if I was caught outdoors in a rainstorm and got soaking wet and when I settled down at home a few hours later and I began sneezing, had a runny nose, and felt altogether miserable, I might conclude that getting soaked gave me a cold.  That’s cause and effect thinking.

What we didn’t consider in the rainstorm-to-cold conclusion are the other variables besides the rainstorm that may have caused my cold.  I forgot that I didn’t wash my hands or “sanitize” after handling forty different items in the grocery store that had already been handled by a go-zillion other folks who hadn’t washed their hands and wiped their noses with those same hands – didn’t your mother ever say, “you don’t know where those hands have been…”

Germs cause colds, not rainstorms.  Start thinking along the lines of correlations instead of cause and effect, which is often just plain wrong because it’s too general.

Correlational thinking goes like this, shark attacks are strongly related to the sale of ice cream. Nobody would reasonably claim that ice cream consumption causes shark attacks.  These two phenomena are correlated but one doesn’t cause the other.  Another variable, summer throngs of people at beaches, is the more likely cause of the rise in both shark attacks and increased sales of ice cream.

A sensible “out” if you want to use generalities is to use the word, “usually.”  It’s just sensible in interactions with other humans, to never use the word always, preceded by the word you.   Also don’t say, “you never…”.  Use general words which apply to once in a while, sometimes, or occasionally.

Sometimes it might be, “just me.”  But it usually applies to more of us, some of us, or perhaps most of us.  The word, usually pretty much explains generalization.  I think we should give massive accolades to the Depressed Persian Tow Truck Man from MADtv, who said most wisely that something can happen usually, but “never always.”

If you like words or trivia or intellectual nonsense, let’s talk games.  Are you game?

The tune that played through my head while pondering this subject was Game of Love, the 1965 American version by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders.  However, upon further examining the lyrics, the only thing I found useful was “…Let’s play.”

I wonder what might make love, a game.  Love doesn’t seem so much a thing that you play at, if playfulness is key to the game of love.

I guess if you’re one who perceives that “love is a battlefield,” with “no promises and no demands,” (Pat Benatar 1983), it might be that love is a war game.  But is this love?  Or, is it playing games?

With love, I believe that if it’s a game, it has to be a win-win or lose-lose.  Love as a game certainly is not a game of chance.  Come to think about it, the game of love might not be a spontaneous game but one of strategy.  Premeditation and planning are required for the win-win goal of this game.

There is some skill involved in the game of love.  Just ask anybody who has partnered with another for many years.

They’ve learned some things about juggling; about tolerance of differences; how to obey the sixth (kill) and ninth (lie) commandments – well all of them help out in long-term relationships; they’ve mastered the balance beam; how to be angry and sin not; they’ve learned their history lessons, household economy, and the temporariness but vitality of the five-year-plan.

I’m of the mind that love is a thing that grows out of challenges borne together over time, rather than a thing that culminates one time a year with dinner out, strawberries dipped in chocolate, champagne, and flowers.

Some people like to play games others don’t – what’s the difference?  I question this both literally and figuratively.  Some folks bow out of playing board games, card games, solving puzzles, video games, and electronic games.  Are games too trivial for some, or childish?

I believe some people literally avoid games because their temperament is too competitive or maybe not competitive enough.  We’ve all been there in a game of sport or even a board game, when folks who make a mistake get angry, seemingly way out of proportion to the spirit of a game.

I guess since I mentioned games of sport, I should surmise that “game animals,” the wild kind, hunted for their meat, are treasured in particular for the sport of the catch.  Hunting is a game of sport.

I mean, people who act deceitful or manipulative in a relationship are said to be “playing games”.  In this scenario there has to be a winner and a loser in the game.

Long-term relationships might be compared to the Olympic Games where only the most dedicated athletes make it to the podium.  Or some might compare their love relationships to the Invictus Games where although wounded, they can still win amongst their peers.

Card games involve both skill and luck.  For example, you have to work with the hand you’ve been dealt.  Some folks have the ability to win the game in spite of a few “bad” hands dealt to them.

What does one get out of watching a game show on television?  Do such folks consider it a personal game of skill to have picked the winner, thus considering themselves winners?

War games, I suppose are the epitome of games of strategy.  “Game theory” is a branch of mathematics that postulates a scenario. The scenario is played out and analyzed against other possibilities and outcomes.  Then another scenario is put onto the table.  I think that theory, analysis, and strategies, of war games would be potentially fun for certain minds.

Since you were so very gracious to follow me down the rabbit-hole of my thoughts about the concept of games, what do you say we go forward as “game changers?”  Maybe we could completely change some upcoming situations with new ideas or decisive plays that will make somebody’s world develop better than expected.

Along with Dean Martin, I have found myself singing, “Everybody loves somebody sometime….  My sometime is now.”  Apparently, songwriters Sam Coslow, Irving Taylor and Ken Lane are my tribe (lyrics licensed by Barton Music Corporation).

So, I have questions.  Can anybody answer everything?

I want to know something about everything.  Does that make me a busybody?

Nobody knows everything.  But somebody knows something.

How does anybody become somebody?  When do you become somebody?

I was just pondering that everybody knows somebody.  But the other way around, not so much.

Maybe somebody will tell me I’m clever.  Perhaps nobody will.

Everybody will have an opinion on everything.  A busybody will however, “know it all.”

Nobody knows everybody.  I know somebody.

Anybody can be somebody, right?  I’m not just anybody, I’m somebody.

A busybody thinks they know something about everybody.  But, in reality they know nobody entirely.

I think nobody can really know everything about anybody.  Everybody has private thoughts.

I’ve worked on this little ditty now and again for some time.  I really hope somebody, if not everybody who reads this realizes that I’m nobody to be telling anybody that I know anything.

In fact, I’m not at all sure if my grammar is altogether correct.  But somebody will surely tell me about it, thusly educating everybody.

They say hindsight is 20/20 so everybody out there has perfect hindsight.  But they also say nobody’s perfect.

“Everybody finds somebody someplace….  My someplace is here.”

I seem to be learning lessons about life rapid-fire lately.  Even as I grow older, “learning my lesson” keeps on coming, maybe even more so than earlier in my life.  So, kids of all ages shouldn’t feel called out when they have to “learn their lesson” over and over again.

Something I learned while playing matching games on my phone, usually when most people are sleeping, was not fresh knowledge but more of a refresher course.  The nugget that I received as a eureka moment was this, “there is an optimal time for everything.”

I know this fact but it came as brand-new knowledge when I found myself awakened after several dreams in the wee hours of the night, and decided to play a game on my phone.  When I opened the game app I remembered that I had closed it in frustration last time I played.  You see, I had nearly completed the game when I inadvertently tapped the home button and the game progress I made was wiped out only to start over.  I closed the app in exasperation.

When I opened the game this time, I played it lickety-split without any ads butting in, and as it was a typically long game with lots of points, I finished it in record time.  I said to myself by way of a reminder, “there’s a right time for everything.”

I’ve learned this same lesson hundreds of times, why don’t I remember it?  For example, why don’t I just simplify and erase some needless frustration by stopping an endeavor when exasperation first sets in, saving it for another time.  But no, I usually let the tension build way too much before abandoning it for that better moment in time.

Only until the better time presents itself and the task goes smoothly, or as it should, do I see the difference.  Some people have to learn lessons by seeing it or doing it for themselves.  They learn by doing, not by hearing.  Is that you too or is it just me?

Some of us call it trial and error.  We can’t see the end result abstractly; we have to actually do the task and see that it was the wrong choice (or the right choice) before we get it.

In the same vein, we can’t see in the moment, that if we had just WAITED, we wouldn’t have needed to worry or stress because it worked out better than we imagined.  That’s the downside of imagination, seeing a negative outcome when a positive one was on the way.  That’s an example of “hurry up and wait,” usually borne out in a hospital or doctor’s waiting room.

Many years ago, I had a dream that I got the job, in the waiting room.  Specifically, a bunch of us were waiting to be interviewed for a job.  It was an inordinately long wait.

There was a closet in the waiting room.  People who already worked there came out periodically and retrieved outdated office equipment like manual typewriters, shorthand pads, and Dictaphones, from the closet.

Some of the younger folks in the waiting room exited the building when they saw the old, unfamiliar stuff being unearthed.  Others of us just waited.

Morning dwindled into midday.  I took a train home to refresh myself and came back in the afternoon and just a few of the interviewees remained.  A child began to act out and it was too annoying for a couple of people who then left.

It was the end of the day and the interviewer came out and asked one question of the three of us who remained.  I got the job.

It seems that there truly is a time for everything.  Sometimes you just have to wait for it.  And if it’s not the time and you try to force it, you end up banging your head against the wall in frustration.  It won’t happen until the time is right.

Have you ever observed that some people have good timing and others just don’t get it.  Not until they blurt something out at the wrong time, do these folks realize they should have waited.  It would have made all the difference.

The origins for “a time and a place for everything,” comes from the Bible’s Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes.  “For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven,” is how I remember it.

Ecclesiastes, along with Proverbs and others, is considered wisdom literature.  In particular, Ecclesiastes ruminates about the meaninglessness of life without God.

Therefore, this quote about time and place, put into the context of meaninglessness, explains the frustration we experience when we get the timing wrong.  “If I had just waited… maybe I wouldn’t have had to suffer….”  The wisdom and simplicity of sometimes just waiting, is highlighted in this Scripture.

In popular psychological parlance, we’ve been told to chill out and (pause), wait for it….  If you’ve been hanging out in the waiting room for a while, I’m your sister.

Try making the best of the wait.  “Whistle while we work,” is a little chorus I remember from lessons learned in childhood, originally from the 1937 Disney film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and it reminds us to go to work as usual, putting one foot in front of the other, while we wait for that other thing that we’re so tempted to force into being. 

The time will be right sometime.  So, dreams, jobs, waiting rooms, needless frustration, worrying for nothing… just wait for it.  Or not.  Maybe you’d rather learn your lesson again the next time around, like me.

For the last six months or so, I’ve had some back pain.  I’m not having a pity party, so don’t be offended if you’re not invited.

This column isn’t really about that back pain, but an attempt to observe, out loud, what is, and adapt to it.  I recently heard a ditty, “It is what it is, and it’s not great.”  I’m contemplating this, in writing.

Once upon a time, I worked for a renowned research psychiatrist, focusing on childhood depression.  One of my tasks at that university job, was to supervise work-study students.

One particular student whom I deemed “moody,” essentially complained to the boss that I didn’t tell her what to do, instead asked her if she minded getting the mail from a neighboring building in the middle of a rain storm.  I thought I was being courteous and softening the blow.

However, to that young woman, whom the boss said was clinically depressed, I was sort of dancing around reality, in order to be polite.  And she clearly wanted me to stop it.  Or so said the boss.

I learned in that situation, to edit my enthusiasm.  “Be happy, nice, optimistic, but do you have to be THAT positive, all the time?  It’s annoying,” told me, to myself.

Back in that day we used to refer to someone with a “pie in the sky” approach to life, as a Pollyanna.  Unrealistic; excessively cheerful; all is sweetness and light, when sadness, frustration, anxiety, or at least neutrality is the more appropriate attitude toward certain external circumstances.  In less-than-ideal situations, Pollyanna remains stuck in wonderland.  It might be denial rather than optimism, sometimes.

Frequently we run into what might be perceived as “Pollyanna-ism” on the social media platform, Facebook.  Why?  It might be because we’re on a perpetual date, showing only our best side, and we’re wearing “social-makeup” on Facebook.

Some of us want to punch those perfect Facebook people.  You know the ones who are constantly, it seems, on a cruise, celebrating something with balloons, bells and whistles, or they’re at some exotic travel destination, promoting one event or another, and always dressed up.  Meanwhile I’m at Walmart on a Saturday night trying to get cat litter and there are even waiting lines at the self-checkouts.  This stuff might make Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm) want to barf, me thinks.

I’m a wife, mother, and grandmother, with a job, if not a career.  I entertain a passion for writing – really wanting to be like Dave Berry.  With my spouse, we own a business, maintain a home, and are sandwiched tightly between generations of family to whom we love and extend care, to the best of our ability.  Is there any wonder I try to be everything to everybody, and look half decent in the process?  I’m trying to edit my enthusiasm here, so, I’d really rather not hear from any of those perfect people, “you look tired!”

In terms of that back pain, I sort of decided in order for me personally to find some sort of healing, I’d first have to bump up my awareness of how I move about this planet.  It seems that I’m not doing myself any favors by moving around like when I was, say sixteen years old.

I think I’m going to try living a tad more deliberately.  For example, instead of restringing that rag rug in our entryway, in situ with my legs poised Indian-style, I’ll put it up on something, waist-high.

Instead of stacking the firewood by myself, inter-weaving the pieces “just so,” because I’m really good at it, I’ll revel in the fact that my grandson enjoys helping us with that rather hard work.  We can give the opportunity to him to feel good about a job well-done.

I had a dream that I was a Massey-Ferguson or a Farm-All tractor.  In case you’re not familiar, these are/were tractors that were durable, reliable, not in the least fancy or highfalutin, but made to last and get the job done. Hm.

Over the holidays I found that I can let tradition along with the extra work, slide a bit if it means I don’t have to live on anti-inflammatory medicine with a side of pain meds.  And, I can accept that help, is not your usual four-letter word.

You might reply, “but I have …to….”  like all of us accustomed to believing, “if you want it done right, do it yourself.”  Do you have to?  Must it be done right, or can it just be done?

Just because you used to, doesn’t mean you have to, now.  Things change.  People change.

Enthusiasm is positive, and perfectionism is helpful in providing us with a high standard to aim for.  Reinhold Niebuhr said, “Aim for the stars and maybe you’ll reach the sky.”

The downside of perfectionism and unedited enthusiasm, is it’s not the material of personal contentment.  It’s more the maker of anxiety about not being enough, or God forbid, “too much.”  Not to risk too much sociological theory, perfectionism and unedited enthusiasm work out best for “the man,” the society, the organization, the institution, and not so much for the individual.

Somewhere along the journey toward trying to become enough, following the trail-sign, “I have to,” some of us become “too much.”  I’m self-aware enough to admit that at times in my life, I’ve been that person.

Since we’re embarking on a new year, I’m planning to pay attention to how much is “too much.”  Instead of too much enthusiasm, having to be right, too much emotion, psychology, feelings, empathy, knowing…, I think I’ll try checking all that at the door and pretend that like Goldilocks, I’ve found that comfy place, called “just right,” and I won’t be afraid of how the bears will react to my having found their keys.

My astrological sign is Libra and it is symbolized by balances.  I hereby edit my enthusiasm and will attempt in 2024 to achieve some balance between what I really “have to” do, be, say, achieve, feel…. and what’s enthusiasm-worthy.  Maybe you and I can edit that ditty written above, to a more balanced, “It is what it is, and it’s okay.”