Resolutions and recommendations

Resolutions and “best of “ lists are common topics as the year wraps up and a new one begins.  I thought I would address both in this last blog of the year.  A couple of caveats:  When it comes to resolutions, I have made many and failed at most. I have found that not making any in in the first pace avoids a lot of disappointment in the coming year. As for my year-end book recommendations, they are non-fiction.  However, I usually prefer novels.

So let’s get to New Year’s resolutions. According to a just released study by the University of Scranton, most of us have experience making resolutions (62%) and they usually focus around four areas of descending prominence: self-improvement, weight, money, relationships. The bad news is only 1 in 3 lasts more than a month  and  less than half make it past six months. No surprise that younger people do better: those under 50 are three times more likely to be successful in keeping a resolution than those over 50 which lends credence to the saying “you can’t teach an old dog a new trick”.

Resolutions are either starting something good or stopping something bad.  This year’s Top Ten include losing weight (#1), enjoying life (#4) and staying fit (#5). Doctors of mind and body will all agree that exercise is the magic elixir for quality of life and mood improvement.  It also leads to other positive behaviors including better diet and better sleep.  Obviously, this is easier said than done because so few of us meet a common recommendation of maintaining our heart rate at 65% of maximum (usually calculated at 220 – Age) for 45 minutes six times a week. Time and motivation are the usual excuses.  However, I have found with the right motivation, I can find the time. So a book I recommend is Younger Next Year.  It is absolutely the best and most readable book on physiology and how exercise affects it.  If it doesn’t fire you up to get moving, nothing will.

On other hand, when it comes to breaking a bad habit, I have lots of experience. For instance, I have tried to quit smoking cigarettes (#7) at least twenty times. Having smoked 300,000 already, I love cigarettes. The coughing, the burn holes and bad breath, not so much.  The last time I quit and the most successful was when I realized that I am an addict. Every time I had failed before was because I thought that I could smoke occasionally.  I couldn’t and before long I would be back to two packs a day.  What made me successful the last time was realizing that if I took a puff, I would be back to square one. And rather than dealing with quitting for life which was an overwhelming prospect, I just had to quit for the next minute.  The minutes have added up to thirty years so far.  This year I read The Spirituality of Imperfection, which I highly recommend.  A lot of its points reference the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous, the originator of the Twelve Step program, that is often used to break really “bad habits” like alcohol and drug addition.  It has honesty, humanity and hope.

 So there you have it – the good, the bad and the books. And for a fiction recommendation: 11/22/63, a Stephen King book without a single bit of creepiness or gore. And it’s a love story that brought a tear and a smile.

Who is rich?

Eddie Ogan lives in rural Washington and wrote a story about her childhood that I’ll never forget.  Given the season, I thought you might enjoy it, too:

I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. My dad had died five years before.

A month before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially.

When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month to save on the grocery bill.  If we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1.  We made $20 on pot holders.

That month was one of the best of our lives.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change.

We could hardly wait to get to church! When the offering was taken, Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20.

As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. She opened the envelope and out fell three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills.

Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor.  I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed.

We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way.

At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week.

Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering.

When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church!"

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Eddie said she never felt poor again.  Being rich is measured more by what we share than by what we have. 

What makes us happy?

Over Thanksgiving, our daughter made us watch a movie on Netflix called “Happy”. It is a documentary that examines cultures across the world in terms of the level and source of happiness.  It features a rickshaw driver in India who speaks of his good fortune, and an aboriginal African tribe who lives off the barest of essentials yet has the highest “happiness” index of any culture that was studied.

In the movie, scientists who study “happiness” generally agreed that there are two types of goals that people seek: extrinsic and intrinsic.  Extrinsic goals relate to tangible things and can be seen: affluence, achievement and appearance.  Intrinsic goals are much more personal and less visible: personal growth, relationships and the desire to help others.  

Across the world, the results were consistent: rich or poor, those who actively engaged in pursuing intrinsic goals were happier than those who focused solely on extrinsic ones. What our parents have always told us has been confirmed by science: money can’t buy happiness. (And as the Beatles observed, it can’t buy me love either).

Relationships (goodwill, friends, family) and helping others (acts of kindness, charity, gift giving) are the universal themes of this season.  No wonder this is called the season of joy. 

On the news tonight there was a story about a New York policeman who came across a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk in Times Square.  The weather was freezing and the man did not even have shoes.  Rather than ignore him or shoo him away, the policeman walked into a nearby store and bought a pair of warm boots.  A passing tourist caught the policeman kneeling beside the man and helping him with his new boots.  The photo has been viewed over 300,000 times so far and the policeman has gotten a lot of media attention.  I am sure that his simple act of kindness gives him more joy than all the world’s adoration.

I don’t have a personal story like that to tell you. But I have been working on a way to make our seasonal giving more personal. Writing a check at the kitchen table and mailing it can be a little dry and detached.  This year we have decided to make it a family affair.

We are going to tell our children that we are going to give to the charity of their choice.  In exchange, we will sit down as a family and each of us will share which charity and why we selected it.  We will be reminded that we are fortunate to be together and to have this opportunity to share our bounty.

Relationships and helping others. Season of giving! Season of joy!

Season of hope or hassle?

Of all the seasons, summer and fall seem to pass by the fastest for different reasons.  Summer passes quickly because we hate to see it go.  Many of my friends even start to get depressed at the summer equinox in late June knowing that the days will start to grow shorter – and that the coming seasons bring an end to the fresh peaches and corn at the roadside stands, the trips to the local pool or lake, kids baseball or sitting out on the patio at night with friends.

Fall passes quickly for entirely differently reasons.  It’s as if a starting gun fires the day the kids go back to school.  We mentally pack away the frolic of summers and resume our normal and serious lives.  The brisk walk becomes a trot around Halloween.  At Thanksgiving, it becomes a full sprint to the end.

How many times have I found myself at Christmas Eve thinking, “I missed the season again this year!”  With all that is going on – working, shopping, making arrangements, traveling – it’s easy to miss the joy of it all.  Instead of “Goodwill toward all!” and a reminder of our common humanity and connections, it can turn out to be a season of hurry and hassle.

This year I’m working to have a great holiday season.  Sure, the demands of work will remain, but there’s time to squeeze in the things I need to do. I’ll make sure I don’t miss the “events” of the season: I’ll get tickets to our local choir concert and take our family to see the Christmas Carol and bring good spirit to the neighborhood Christmas party.

More importantly, when I see a person in a hurry or acting impatiently, I’ll try to wonder what must be going on in their life to make them so.  Or wonder if they have family and friends to love. When I find myself running behind or getting judgmental, maybe I’ll take the time to consciously count my blessings. I will try to remember many will be passing this season without a loved one for the first time. Maybe I can look for an opportunity to be generous and help someone out that I might not otherwise do.  

If I miss the season, I’ll be the one to blame. And I vow to occasionally pause so that I may see the joy and pain of this world around me and consider my place in it. I want to make this a season of connection, not of hurry.

Dag Hammarsjkold

In grade school I remember reading in my Weekly Reader about Dag Hammarsjkold, Secretary General of the United Nations. He remained a dim memory until somewhere along the way, I heard a simple but beautiful prayer that he wrote. It sank back into the cobwebs until one day it burst back to the surface as my wife, Kay, and I were walking back to our car after a doctor’s visit.

Our son, Austin, was three and had not begun to speak.  We learned of a campaign of whispers amongst the family that something might be wrong.  We thought they were overreacting.  Finally ceding to grandparents' concerns, we reluctantly took him for a battery of tests.  A few days later we sat in the doctor's office to hear the results. Before we went in, we thought we would hear something along the lines of, "He's a boy and boys take a little longer to speak. So nothing to worry about."

We were wrong. The doctor patiently went through the results of each test which showed Austin severely behind in developing language and responsiveness to social cues.  Ever the optimist, I asked the doctor, "Will he get grow out of this?"

He paused and said quietly, "He might get worse."

Afterwards, after Kay and I walked back to the car in shock, we knew our life had taken an unexpected and fearful turn into the unknown. We were in store for a life we never envisioned.

The next morning I came into my office in Deerfield and put printed out that prayer and pinned it on my cubicle wall where I saw it every time I sat down at my desk. It served as a constant reminder of the sweetness and preciousness of this life and that with faith and resolve we can face whatever the future may bring. Looking back over those twenty-two years since, it is as meaningful today as it was the day I first hung it. Gratitude, acceptance, humbleness, hope and faith. Fully expressed in thirteen words:

"For all that has been: thank you. For all that will be: yes."