Flying Into a Rage

"People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing." - Will Roger

I heard a story recently about a romance that ended because the woman, a psychiatrist ironically enough, had a tendency to fly into a rage--an activity I've always believed to be singularly useless. I can only remember actually doing it a couple of times, both of which I thoroughly regret. More often I detour around rage, prompted by numerous signs along the roadside:

Potential Rage Ahead
Warning! Rage May Ensue
Trucks Shift Into Lower Gear, Rage in 1.5 Miles
In Case of Rage, Climb to Higher Ground

Isn't there always higher ground to climb to, or is there a place for flying into a rage? I once deliberately geared myself up to fly into a vicious rage with somebody I loved very much, not to release pent up anger but more in hopes I might finally persuade him to change and choose a less self-destructive path. Here is a list of activities on that same level of futility:

* Banging your head against a stone wall
* Pissing in the wind, tilting at windmills, clutching at straws
* Changing practically anything but your own reactions
* Sewing a cambric shirt without seams or needlework
* Finding an acre of land between the salt water and the sea sand

See also Scarborough Fair with a shout out to folk singers everywhere.
"But everybody needs to vent," you say.

Venting is different--properly done, it's letting off steam with somebody who cares enough about you to be sympathetic just long enough and no longer, lest you find yourself in a rut.  Whereas indulging in full-on rage usually results in your saying hateful things you don't really mean in a nuclear escalation that often includes you subsequently hearing hateful things from the distant past and/or your misbegotten youth.

Instead, release the pressure a bit at a time with patience and direct communication, and nobody gets hurt. Clare Pinkola Estes tells the story of the faithful wife's long search for the tiger's eyelashes, a promised cure for her husband's debilitating post-traumatic stress. In the end, the patience that was required to obtain the tiger's eyelashes was itself the cure.  What her husband needed most was her patience and love.  Rage was just an unnecessary and stressful stop along the way.

All of that said, I am working on being more comfortable with anger, which is not the enemy, but a friend, a signpost pointing to situations demanding a closer look. It is okay to feel anger (and any other feeling), and nothing to fear. The key is what happens next.

Turning Point

New Year's Eve

Pearl Street Starbucks

A time comes when there are so many reasons to go that you know it's time; the center cannot hold, the balancing act can't continue.  You realize you're needed and wanted much more in a different universe.  I woke up this morning inventorying in my mind the removal and disposal of all the stuff in my office at work--perhaps the tide has turned?  What does one do with heavy glass recognition plaques marking one's 5, 15, 20 years at a company one must ultimately leave?  And what of all the books on leadership, Agile development, and more--would anyone else even want them?

I'll keep the six tiny carved laughing Buddhas; not so sure about the fountain with the stalk of bamboo growing in it.  How about the beautiful flowering cactus?  Yes.  I can surely keep it alive.

Many will envy me if I make this move and never guess how terrifying it is.  Shall I tell myself a different story?  It's not terrifying, but thrilling to imagine moving beyond this phase in my life to something new and potentially far more fulfilling.  

The sun obligingly shines through the Starbucks window and reflects a prism rainbow right across my journal page--purple-blue, then brilliant green fading to yellow, then orange and red.  A beautiful sign that taking care of myself and my family first is surely the right path, not selfish but wise beyond analysis, something that in the end I will not regret because of the new experiences I'll encounter on the next leg of the journey.  It is indeed a journey--not a final destination to save even more money so I'll finally, finally feel secure.  Nothing's secure anyway.  I have only to count already fallen friends and family to know that all is ephemeral, including the prism rainbow already fading from my page but marked by me while it was there in the moment as a sign, noticed before it was quickly gone, giving me a moment's joy.

To notice more--this is part of the journey; to be here now.  The unhappiness comes with fear of the future and regret about the past, but not from now.  Now contains joy and contentment and wonder.  Just remembering to breathe and be grateful for the oxygen can be such a relief.  Releaf?  And my current work becomes less important in a relative sense as my priorities change from more security and money to more time. 

Time to move on.

Martha Beck says:  "The way we do anything is the way we do everything."

The way I do things is to think, think, think.  This has left me with less ability right now to listen to myself (or others) and learn the heart's deepest desires.  But I'm hearing more and more clearly now.

Magically, the prism rainbow returns to illuminate my page!  A sign to be sure, if I‘m willing to tell myself that story. The colors are even more glorious than before and the joy returns.  Surely I'm on the right path.  I don't want to stop writing because I'm enjoying the rainbow so much.  I move the page so my hand doesn't block the light.

The message:  Do not allow yourself to block the beauty and happiness, for it is surely you alone who block them when they're right there!

The way you do anything is the way you do everything.  My way tends to include much cautious analysis.  I seek full assurance that everything will be okay and all my decisions will be the right ones.  In the last third of any life there is only one guarantee:  it will end.  All the rest is a crapshoot.  How do I want to spend the last third of my life?  What things no longer give me pleasure but are instead breaking my heart, and why do I still cling to them?

Martha Beck again:  "Everything I've ever taught boils down to this--I cannot believe people keep paying me to say this--if something feels really good for you, you might want to do it, and if something feels really horrible, you might want to consider not doing it.  Thank you, give me my $150."

Carpe Diem.  

Do You Want Assertiveness with That?

There are all the other promises to myself, of course--like exercising, losing weight, and connecting more with other people. But my main resolution for 2012 is to be more direct. I am astounded at how often I phrase a desire or intention I have as a question. Instead of making my desires clear, I throw out a query. What often happens next is that the perfectly reasonable recipient responds with what he or she wants and that becomes the plan.

This is not because the other person is an overbearing asshole.

It's because I almost always default to what other people want. So I end up getting less of what I want, and quite unnecessarily. The reasons for this are rooted in the distant past and likely have to do with my childhood; therapy fodder for sure. Meanwhile, a yellow sticky is emblazoned on my computer at work that says, “Be Direct.” I am mildly encouraged that it does not say “Shouldn’t you be more direct? ” or “What do you think of the idea of my being more direct?” Or a crafter, sneakier version: “I’ve been thinking about whether I phrase too many of my ideas as questions lately—what do you think?”

Authenticity and Facebook

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."

Mark Twain

I found an interesting article in the New York Times last Sunday about authenticity, especially on-line. (Anybody who's been around for awhile surely recalls the old cartoon about how "nobody knows you're a dog when you're on the Internet.") Everybody these days seems to be professing authenticity, a big topic of discussion in connection with the many GOP presidential candidates. One thing I'm pretty certain about: the truly authentic don't have to announce it to the world.

The article mentions Facebook--how it is usually our presentation of "ourselves on our best day." And that a typical person's post is an attempt, consciously or not, to sell him or herself. I think Facebook is a little more complicated than that; people who post are driven by one or more motivations including the need to publicly reveal:

- the best possible face

- a singular item expected to awe/amaze/amuse

- a whine, with the hope for sympathy

- an opinion, with the hope that many will agree with it

- a series of compulsively recorded details about every day life in a ploy for attention

- a polite, dutiful periodic comment in order not to appear to be too much of a lurking voyeur

- a short response to someone else's post to demonstrate solidarity and/or some level of participation in life

There are probably many other modes--do people even think about it anymore? Or is Facebook so ubiquitous at this point that asking these questions is like asking what "mode" somebody is in when they use a telephone or send an email?

I think the underlying motivation is to connect with other people in some way, but without any great investment of time, energy or commitment. However, this basic need to connect is authentic, no? Even though the "face" people present on Facebook may not be truly accurate or authentic, it does give people a way to maintain at least a very low grade connection with others. And so Facebook has redeeming value because it allows people to stay connected albeit in a very superficial way for the most part.

So, back to authenticity--how to define it? Is it telling the truth no matter what, even if it does more harm than good? I think it's telling yourself the truth, and acting in close concert with your most deeply held values, no matter what the cost. Given this, mentioning authenticity and presidential candidates in the same breath seems highly contradictory.

Bad Moods Are Like Secondhand Smoke

I am not an overly moody person most of the time, although I admit I do have my moments. Lately it seems I'm surrounded by moody people, however: people with lots of ups and downs, people who are easily angered by the unavoidable black flies in the chardonnay of life (with a shout out to Alanis), people who are never satisfied, cynics and pessimists of all stripes, people who take work too seriously or not seriously enough. Stop. Wait! This is becoming a moody list of Things That Really Piss Me Off and that is not the topic of this blog.

The topic of this blog is the impact of one person's bad mood on those in the vicinity. Especially those very black moods that twist and curl their sinuous ways around our heads before we have time to move away. Like secondhand smoke, they are inflicted by one thoughtless, oblivious person on others, sometimes many others, in no time at all. The impact of a dark mood on others is hard to undo, even more so if the moody person holds great power either through love or authority.

Knowing all this, I try to be mindful of my own attitudes and moods (especially the darkest ones) and stifle myself where appropriate. Perhaps there should be a special glassed-in area set aside where people with bad moods can go to unleash their secondhand miseries on each other after which they could return to civilized society with only the faint odor of bleakness lingering on their persons like a cheap perfume.

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. - Voltaire. 

Kaizen

Lately I've been mindful of Kaizen, the Japanese concept of continual, incremental improvement. The first step with Kaizen both at work and at home is awareness: clearly seeing the possibilities for improvement.

Since improvement is incremental with small measured experiments to check progress, the concept of Kaizen can overcome that sinking feeling that "this mess is way too big to tackle." It does require a degree of trust, optimism, and faith in oneself and other people, however, since very often an improvement can't be made without some agreement and cooperation from the larger group. Open, frequent communication is essential to Kaizen.

I had a conversation with a colleague who was new to one of our teams at work yesterday. I was (from my perspective, of course) attempting to communicate the benefits of working well across teams, explaining the history behind why this federated group of teams had joined together for common goals, how important it was to maintain respect and collaboration across these teams. "I want you to be successful on this team," I said at one point as I was trying to convince her to be more mindful of how her actions were impacting the group as a whole. "I'm already successful," she snapped back. Just one time in my life I would like to feel that kind of certitude, but I don't think it would help me for the long haul. To understand why, keep reading.

How can you be successful without considering the team as a whole? Kaizen assumes that the group works together to identify ways to improve quality and efficiency, and then incrementally implements these steps, testing progress at each step. It doesn't work well for those who don't want to acknowledge mutual dependencies.

I was heartened the other day during a team retrospective meeting to hear a respected and brilliant software architect comment that very early team communication about how a task will be accomplished can help guide it the right way from the beginning and can therefore reduce waste of time and resource. But this takes time up front, and some patience, and the natural urge to proactively communicate. Not everybody is born able to do this. It has to be encouraged and developed.

My dentist (of all people) has a saying his staff quotes during lectures about proper dental hygiene: "The trouble with communication is that people think it's happened."

True everywhere in life. If you think you know what's going on already, and if you're absolutely positive you're on the right track, you don't bother to ask, and you jump straight to a solution that may have little to do with addressing the root cause of a problem. I've done this so many times I've lost count. But at least I'm mindful of the trap.

My Kaizen thought for the day: ask five whys to understand a difficult problem, and always question what you think you already know.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A Cup of Tea

Yesterday I observed someone I work closely with demonstrate the same kind of egoless approach to work that I strongly support. One technical group was suggesting that another group’s plan and architecture were very risky and questionable. Since the level of dependency on this component was high for the project, there were concerns. The leader of the questioning group stepped in to say, essentially, that both groups should mind their own business and trust that the other group was doing the right thing. But the leader of the group under question responded that we were all fortunate to have access to many bright minds in our company, and that his group would welcome whatever further review and refinement of their plans might be needed.

Instead of taking offense, or going on the attack, he responded with an open mind, ready to hear what he and his group might not already know.

This is the kind of approach I believe in and try to practice myself, that is, setting aside ego to make progress. Some might view it as passivity and weakness—but to me it represents confidence and strength, and my admiration for the individual who took this approach rose considerably. I’ve found that this is ultimately the better course and one of the ways of maintaining high integrity and a clear sense of my true north. Seeing it in another person at work made me feel downright happy and almost as though I fit in, although not quite.

At home and at work I strive with varying degrees of success to really listen to people. I find that I am least productive when I am only half listening to what somebody is saying, assuming I already know what they’re explaining. This happens more often when I’m multi-tasking, a nefariously unproductive habit that rarely ends well.

An oft-told Zen story comes to mind, about the university professor who goes to see the Zen master to learn the meaning of life. After a lengthy and not necessarily productive exchange, the master pauses to pour a cup of tea, and continues pouring as the tea overflows the cup. Finally his visitor says, “Stop. Stop. It is already full!” And the Zen master says, “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

Little Old Lady Ninja

The blues come on little rat feet…apologies to Carl Sandburg. I have been pondering new ways to avoid the Sunday night blues after a particularly bad bout with the Sunday night blues last weekend.

The other night I was vegetating on the couch with my feet up reading junk fiction after a long day fighting dragons and tilting against windmills at work.  I was wearing my black satin pajamas, and as I rose smoothly (hah!) to get myself a cup of tea my husband remarked that I looked like a “little old lady ninja” in those black pjs.

Okay, I’ll take that. My goal as I get older is to remain strong in body and spirit, at the ready to fight the demons and dragons found mainly in my own imaginings. Better this than a feeble old lady in a flannel nightgown.

The Sunday night blues is one of my demons. Every Monday morning at work when I ask people how their weekends went they say “Great—but too short.” (I am excepting of course those who have worked all weekend).

I’m pretty sure many people of all stripes fight the Sunday night blues. There are many blogs and articles with tips on how to beat them, from distracting oneself with non-stop activity, to planning some special treat for Monday morning, to meditation, to sunshine and exercise. As a matter of fact, it’s a gorgeous, sunny, September Sunday here in Boulder. Revel in it, I say! The ultimate trick I have is pure determination—to just be hell bent on wringing every last drop of joy out of each moment, Sunday or no. So - fight back against the Sunday blues like a little old lady ninja—and if it helps, imagine me: black-clad, feet planted, hands raised, staring down the demon blues in mock ferocity.

Chop Wood, Carry Water: A Meditation on Cleaning House

Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.

Zen Proverb

Today I cleaned house. It’s something I have been lucky enough not to have to do in a long time, given the division of labor we usually live under in my household. It took me three hours to scrub two bathrooms, clean a kitchen, and dust and vaccum a family room, living room, hallway and bedroom. I got a pretty good workout and my body is sore.

I took the opportunity to meditate on this simple set of activities. One thing for sure about cleaning a house—you can tell you’re making progress, and you can look around once you’re done and revel in a certain satisfaction that your mission has for the most part been accomplished. Perhaps after all there exist a few things over which you have a modicum of control and there’s something comforting in that.

I noticed where my mind went while housecleaning today—a mild resentment at having to do these chores normally done by somebody else who is too sick to do them right now, and then the gentle reminder to myself of how many times these chores have been done on my behalf over many years with perhaps not enough real appreciation on my part. I noticed: the satisfaction in scrubbing the kitchen floor and repeatedly rinsing the dirty water down the drain; the incredible mess a corner poinsetta makes as it sheds some of its lower leaves onto the living room carpet; the pervasiveness of cat hair in unexpected corners. I tried to be present all through the process, and that made it seem like a new experience somehow, rather than drudgery. Have you ever tried noticing each and every sensation as you do something very routine? It can be quite a revelation.

Attitude

We shot a lot of pool over the holiday break. Since I am about to take on a major new challenge at work, I found the following quote to be particular helpful. Attitude does make a huge difference.

From "Byrne's New Standard Book of Pool and Billiards,” p. 20:

“A surprisingly large part of pool skill is a matter of attitude and concentration. When the pressure is on, the player with the best control of his nerves and emotions has a big advantage.

Try to play with confidence, even if you have little reason for having any. The sooner you act like a good player, the sooner you’ll become one. I don’t mean you should swagger, pose, brag, and sneer like some of the insufferable clowns you see at tournaments, but I do mean you should cultivate an air of command. When it’s your turn to shoot, don’t come to the table with your face a mask of fear and indecision; step right up as if everything is under control. Handle the chalk and cue with the illusion of easy familiarity. Survey the mess on the table as if a computer is whirring in your head producing printouts of favorable odds…

Acting like a good player even though you are miscast in the role is not so much for the purpose of frightening your opponent as it is for building up a feeling of confidence within yourself. In many areas of life and pool, a confident mental attitude is almost as important for success as luck…once you decide to try a certain shot it pays to do so with forthrightness and even ebullience. You’ve got to believe that you can make the shot, that you will make it. At the moment of truth there is no room for pessimism. Once you allow yourself to start worrying about how hard the shot is, how poor your chances are of making it, how bad you are going to look if you miss, how embarrassing it will be to lose the game…well, then that exquisite machine you’ve been fine-tuning is almost sure to belch, backfire, and run off the tracks.

Phrased as an apothegm: Mental control is as important as cueball control.”