Saturday, July 27, 2013

First World Problems


 "Spilled Starbucks coffee on my yellow t-shirt while sitting in the shade on the Pearl Street Mall."

A wordy yet apt example of a "first-world problem."  Jessica Hagy's Venn diagram illustrates the idea nicely.

Others include not being fulfilled in my high paying job, worrying whether I can live the good life in retirement, and feeling hassled about keeping all my mobile devices updated, synced and charged.

I recently hung out with my younger sister for a few days.  She is adept at both eliciting laughs and laughing at herself, utterly admirable attributes.  A few times she caught herself complaining about trivial problems like having to replace the cat-pee soaked carpet in her house after a tenant left, and she referred to these as "first world problems."

I find the term, upon examination, to be a valuable way to instantly regain sorely needed perspective when I am in the depths of obsessive worry in a complicated world.  Lately I've been invoking the concept often as I go about my day, since almost every "problem" I encounter pales in comparison with the life and death issues faced by much of the world's population.

The Urban Dictionary definition:  "problems from living in a wealthy, industrialized nation that third worlders would probably roll their eyes at."  Here in the US, many of us are so obliviously fortunate that first world problems are all we've ever known.  It's like an instant injection of positive mental health to remember this, except that you have to have reasonably good mental health in the first place to remember this.

Saturday, March 30, 2013

In Praise of Not Knowing


As I continue to figure things out in my new job, I've been interested to observe how horrified I am at the many things I don't understand. I keep beating myself up for not knowing the solutions right away, and have forgotten to feel the joy of learning new things and experiencing the unexpected surprises, insights and connections that come with not knowing.

Acknowledging my not knowing, I changed my password for awhile to a number and symbol ridden form of "humility." Because of some mysterious security configurations at work that require me to enter my password repeatedly throughout the day when I switch environments, I ended up typing the word again and again like a mantra: humility humility humility.

Humility: the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one's importance, rank, etc. dictionary.com

Humility: the absence of any feelings of being better than others. merriam-webster.com

I have a horror of being considered a know-it-all (although I know sometimes I come across that way nonetheless). So perhaps I lean too far in the opposite direction, acknowledging my not knowing too quickly; not a stellar way to gain the confidence of colleagues with strong intellects who take great pride in, by God, knowing.

Buddhists speak of "not knowing" as the greater wisdom. Acknowledging not knowing makes space for new knowledge; see the famous fable about the university professor, the wise monk, and the overflowing teacup. Remembering to let go of the need to know everything is liberating and opens up the possibility for new and surprising insights.

I have the acknowledgement of not knowing down pretty well. And now I have to stop apologizing for it. Knowing when I don’t know may be one of my most valuable qualities.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

How I Stay Sane, Part V: Monkey Mind


I just finished Daniel Smith’s short book “Monkey Mind:  A Memoir of Anxiety.”   It’s a vivid and often hilarious account of how one man has dealt with the challenges of severe anxiety for most of his life.  Since I have loved ones who struggle with anxiety and I myself have had a few alarming bouts with it, the book was illuminating in that it explored the actual thought progressions fanning the flames of anxiety as well as the particular approach, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), that the author found most helpful after many adventures in the land of counseling and psychotherapy.

I’ve also found that CBT is the best bet for squelching that series of unfortunate thoughts that gets irrational anxiety going.  When you’re in the grips of it, though, it is a huge effort to swim toward the surface, struggling against the riptide, and break through to the air, and BREATHE. And then offer logical counter-arguments to the thoughts attacking you, finding at least momentarily that holy grail of equilibrium that every anxious person seeks.

On the Friday morning before my February vacation as I drove down the last big hill to work, I went beyond my usual smile therapy (“fake it ‘til you make it” – simply smiling makes you feel better).  I went further and applied a little laughter yoga as I coasted down the hill:  “Hee hee hee, ho ho ho and a couple of ah hah hahs; that’s how we pass the day away in the merry old Land of Oz…”  Surprisingly, it felt really good.  Laughing at that moment was what my sister calls “the next right thing.”

Taking care of yourself in small ways, taking a break when you have to go to the bathroom (everybody who delays that to get “one more thing done” at work raise their hands), making yourself a cup of tea, breathing, having a piece of dark chocolate or a glass of wine, sitting by the ocean all day long in the cool breeze and eating green grapes and writing in your journal and reading junk fiction:  all next right things.

The voice in your head shrieks, “No time!  That’s selfish.  You don’t really need to do that.  What will people think?  What have you done with your life, you miserable, boring person?”  Oh my, that voice should be argued with and laughed at and ridiculed into submission because it is truly quite absurd.  Pushing back when you hear that voice is the next right thing.

Since I have been suffering from severe writer’s block for months and I also find that often my worst anxiety is about failing at work, I was interested to read Daniel Smith’s take on writing, work, and anxiety: 

Writers like to believe their job is tougher on the nerves than other jobs.  They like to pass around cool, pithy statements to this effect, like this one, from the screenwriter Gene Fowler:  ‘Writing is easy.  All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.’    Or this suspiciously similar one, from the sportswriter Red Smith:  ‘There’s nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.’  Or this one, from the poet Graycie Harmon:  ‘Being an author is like being in charge of your own personal insane asylum.’  I don’t subscribe to the exceptionalist school of writing, however.  It’s true that writing has psychological pitfalls—oppressive deadlines, poor pay, baring one’s soul to an indifferent world—but so do all jobs.  Even the imperative to make choice after choice without clear guidance—allegedly the most nerve-wracking part of the profession—isn’t exclusive to writing.  What is probably true is that, for reasons having to do with solitude and a high allowance for self-obsession, writing attracts a greater percentage of anxious people than other professions.  What is definitely true is that writers are better than other people at articulating their neuroses, and more dedicated to the task.

If you want to understand anxiety better, in yourself or somebody else, read “Monkey Mind,” but think carefully about recommending it to that anxious friend.    You may find that a chronically anxious person can’t bear to read it—because it just stirs up way too much (you guessed it) anxiety.