Acknowledgement

I had been silently crying at my desk at work for weeks.

What had started as an unexpected shower of tears while riding my bike to work one morning soon blossomed into a daily ritual of grieving openly during both my morning and afternoon commutes, which expounded into unwelcome solitary tears rolling down my cheeks to finally full-on watersheds while bean counting at my job on any given day.

I work in an office with ten guys in various degrees of their 20's, 30's, and 40's who wear jeans and hoody's, sneakers, and oversized headphones to listen to their music and Youtube videos while their eyes are drawn to one of the two or three monitors that sits atop each desk.  They don't pay much attention to anything outside of the design they create in their big boxes.  They fart, joke, burp, and lament loudly on life behind their wall-divider-sized computer screens, all without apology, in between hours of silence.  I love them.

They also provide the perfect backdrop and shelter to my unfamiliar despair.  I'm typically a work-it-out sort of gal when it comes to life challenges: there's no problem, business or personal, that doesn't have a myriad of solutions worth vetting, especially if you come at it from a non-emotional perspective.  But riding out the emotional tidal waves of an unexpected divorce has brought me to my rational knees.  The overwhelming sadness, loneliness, and isolation is almost more than I can bear at any given moment, yet I don't need to worry about causing a scene with my distress because everyone's in their own world.

I work in a man-cave of a studio.  We have tools and high-tech gadgets and games, virtual reality and 3D printers, cool beers in the fridge and an ultra modern design concept coupled with impeccable functionality.  But we don't have things of comfort, like coffee or closets or tampons or Kleenex.  So I had retrieved a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom to keep at my desk to wipe away the evidence and blow away the excess of tears.  The ultra-soft roll decreased in size rapidly as the hardest days hit me as I hid behind my screen.

One morning I arrived at the office to find a new box of tissues sitting on my desk.  One of my co-workers had noticed I was suffering and provided solace.

That seemingly small act of humanity means more to me than he'll ever know.  It said to me, "I see you; you matter."  In turn that opened the door for me to acknowledge my own pain, which is truly the only way to start healing.

Acknowledgement is everything.  I am so grateful to find it in the most unexpected of places.

The Entitlement Era

We see it in our kids and our youth.  The assumption that they can do as they choose, regardless of boundaries or limitations that have been place on them, without ramification.

“Can we have 5 more minutes to play after lunch?” a 6-year-old playmate of my daughter asks me.  “How about 2 minutes or 1 or even 30 seconds?“ is the negotiative response to my emphatic no.  Two little feet patter over to the slide and climb its ladder, despite our conversation.

“So?  It’s no big deal,” a motorized scooter-riding, almost-teenager responds to an adult pointing to a sign posted to the outside wall of the school, prohibiting wheels on the new turf.

“But I just missed it by one point, Mom!  I should have still still made the finals.”

They’re just kids learning the ropes, right?  Sure, if we’re doing the teaching.  But what if the parents are the ones teaching the entitlement?  

What if dad parks in the crosswalk at the corner of his daughter’s school when he’s running late, despite the illegality of the park job, endangering other kids trying to cross, and the weekly emails from the school highlighting the traffic issues and asking each parent to do his part to keep the kids safe? 

And how about mom juggling her latte, a bag full of snacks and juice boxes that will keep the two kiddos in tow quiet during the 2-hour musical, despite the rule of no food or drink in the auditorium?

And what does it say when an adult whips out his handheld for a quick text, call or FB update at an event that has been dubbed no phones or electronics allowed during a presentation?

It trickles down folks. Each incident may seem like minutia, but each small entitled action screams not only to the world, but directly to our children, that per definition, we are “inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment” and it’s just not so.  Our children don’t learn entitlement from the outside world, they learn it right at home….from you and from me. 

Even though we may take the time, energy, and unpopular stance of setting up behavior expectations and ramifications for non-adherence for our kids, it’s not enough.  Regardless of following through with the monitoring and doling out of consequences to our children for their behavior, it doesn’t do the trick.  Active engagement in a child’s life alone is insufficient.  We must acknowledge that our personal actions have direct bearing on what our children learn.

When we act as the rules don’t apply to us, our kids will think the same for themselves and respond in fashion: Monkey See, Monkey Do.  Let’s change the behavior.  Let’s change the attitude of tomorrow’s youth.  Let’s change the world.....one self-monitoring behavior at a time.

Quick Fix

Human instinct dictates that we find solutions to the problems and challenges that cross our path.  As we get busy in life, whether it be with work, pleasure, family, or otherwise, we tend to add speed to that problem-solving skillset, so that we can move on to the next issue. When the situations start to pile up, though, the quick fix, although convenient, is not always the right answer.  More often than not, the accumulation of snags is simply an indication to slow the hell down in order to identify the real issue at hand, instead of quick fixing the ancillary hurdles that arise because of it.

Most folks have a lifelong record of quick fixing their way out of boredom, unhappiness or unfulfillment by simply changing the scenery.  A trip to the mall for clothes or makeup “fixes” the dissatisfaction of body image.  A night out drinking alleviates the intensity of a broken heart.  A one-night-stand pumps up the fragile ego after losing a job.  Each knee-jerk reaction temporarily fills an empty space, but doesn’t really address the actual problem. 

Just this week I found myself considering buying a new car, adding a puppy or rescue dog to our brood, and planning a family vacation over Christmas.  Whoa, trying to cover up much?  I was quickly trying to address the feeling of discontent I had been feeling for the last few months, and most recently after having a knee surgery that didn’t yield the results I had hoped for, leaving me still somewhat maimed and in need of some self-care. Stuff the negative feelings down by adding more shit on top so there’s no room for it to breath.

That’s what we do.  New job, new relationship, new house, new cause, new kid, new friend, new hobby, new church, new life. None of it takes away what’s really eating away at the core, as the second that newness if over, the same old worry rears its ugly head, still alive and kickin.’

What happens if we take the time to really address the reality of the situation and own it, feel it, try it on for size, before trying to cover it up or stifle it?  It’s not very pretty.  In fact, allowing oneself to be vulnerable and acknowledging imperfection is a pretty freakin’ unnatural state of being, if you ask me.  It’s uncomfortable just being and not doing, not having the fixes lined up in your court.

But feeling powerless has its advantages too.  It opens you up to creativity, change, and sometimes just acceptance, as every problem doesn’t have an automatic solution.  It also helps fosters real human interaction, as typically when we’re in a state of true susceptibility, we don’t have the capacity to participate in mindless chatter or repeat the same bullshit stories we tell people about ourselves and vice versa.  It’s actually a pretty empowering place to exist if we can just let ourselves.

I have absolutely no idea what, if anything, is the anctedote to my current discontent.  Maybe it is actually a new job or a new way of living.  Or maybe I’m right where I need to be and that’s just got to be enough for right now.  But what I do know is that history has repeated itself enough in my lifetime to show me that the quick fix is not usually the most efficient route.