ATAINING SELF ACTUALIZATION

I always thought I might be one of those people who are able to attain self actualization by the end of my lifetime, but as I move through middle age and find myself sometimes just barely, or honestly, sometimes not even able to tread water or keep up with the flow of life, I stop and reevaluate where I truly am. Without self-evaluation, I am convinced, it is harder to happen upon a goal. Many things in life require a concerted effort with a drive towards a specific goal.

HAPPINESS DEFINITION

Malcolm Gladwell has extraordinary friends. Listening to his podcast  #11 Season 3 May 10, 2018 Revisionist History bonus, he debates his friend Adam Grant, who has a great sense of humour. This is one of the gems that comes up during the debate (a quote by Tom Magliozzi) :

Happiness= Reality -Expectations

ARISTOTLE'S GOLDEN MEAN

Alexander the Great of Macedonia was not known for moderation. But as fate would have it, his teacher was Aristotle, who must have at least mentioned it during his education.

The Golden Mean preceded Thomas Jefferson's idea of moderation, but it describes the balance that goes back to ancient China and the balance of nature called Yin-Yang.

I like this table that outlines some of the details.

MARRIAGE VOWS FROM KATHERINE HEPBURN'S "WOMAN OF THE YEAR"

Dearly beloved...
...we are gathered here together
in the sight of God...
...and in the face of this company...
...to join together this man
and this woman in holy matrimony.
Which is an honorable estate...
...instituted of God...
...and therefore is not by any to be
entered into unadvisedly or lightly...
...but reverently, discreetly, soberly...
...and in the fear of God.
You are performing an act
of utter faith.
Believing in one another to the end.
As the bride gives herself
to the bridegroom...
...let him be to her
father and mother...
...sister and brother...
...and, most sacred, husband.
As he gives himself to her...
...let the bride inspire and sustain him...
...let her unite with him
in all the experiences of life...
...to which their paths shall lead.
The great moments and the small.
That the joys of each
shall be the joys of both.
And the sorrows of each,
the sorrows of both.
If you wish your new estate
to be touched with lasting beauty...
...cherish those gracious visions
of your first love.
Let them not be blurred
by the common events of life.
Be not moved in your devotion.
Believe in the ideal.
You saw it once.
It still exists.
It is the final truth.
William...
...wilt thou have this woman
to thy wedded wife...
...to live together after God's ordinance
in the holy estate of matrimony?

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=woman-of-the-year

SOCIAL ECONOMICS I CAN GET BEHIND

I had a problem. Then I listened to Planet Money Podcast #844: Nice Game. It solved my problem and freed my conscience.

My schedule is killing me. I am stuck feeling bad though, because I am only available half the month with half my time dedicated to  shared parenting. I have offered ways to maximize this to my scheduler. I have offered every spare moment not accounted for to my job. I have cried over my failure to do more.

I now have been freed from this burden. This is what happened:

I gave every availability possible. I asked for 24-36 hours after night shifts, no more than 2 evenings or 3 days in a row, and ideally four shifts a week. I left my weeks open.

But instead of respecting my parameters, I got 2 shifts one week, 5 another, and 4 weekend nights in August, two in a row at a time.

The theory of economics that works the best, working from the prisoner's dilemma, is to offer to cooperate until you are taken advantage of. Then you are best not to cooperate, until the cooperation is offered back to you.

It may save missiles being launched in our current world climate. It helps me to stop feeling guilty about laying out my time as carte blanche. It allows me to insist that I don't get 5 shifts in a row, and that I may not be able to do as many shifts as my boss thinks I should be doing.

I like the idea of living in a society that you give your best first, but you don't have to be a doormat.
If it's good enough for avoid geopolitical disasters, it seems like a good way to live my little life.

I MAY GO TO THE FOREST BUT YOU MAY NEED TO GO TO THE SEA

“When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused."

Rainer Maria Rilke

A METAPHOR FOR HARDSHIP

A tree growing in the space left for it in a sidewalk downtown

SORROW CREATES ROOM FOR JOY

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”

― Rumi

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

Isaiah 61:3 King James Version

BUILDING AND REBUILDING TRUST

1. Authenticity
2. Logic (rigorous)
3. Empathy

Another worthwhile TED talk, with Francis Frei, Harvard professor.

SUFFRAGETTE CALL TO ARMS

"Better a rebel than a slave."

Mrs. Bancroft

DELIBERATE PRACTICE

I have been reading through Quiet by Susan Caine again (watch her TED talk here), trying to glean teaching points for introverts such as myself in the context of our extroverted world. I found it interesting to realize that my background in the evangelical church was an extreme in this respect. Working in the academic emergency department seems similarly biased for extraverts.

The argument she makes is that most advances come from the introverted practice of reflection and deliberate practice. It was strange to realize that some of my losses in my personality over time have been the very strengths my introverted self used to have while I was a student. Alone time with deliberate practice is exactly what my life lacks. I spend so much time in busyness, I feel like a hamster on a wheel or a rat in a race. What time I have alone, I feel the weight of being alone and tend to spend my off time in diversion or daily duties of laundry, cooking, dishes, yard work and housework. But I have stopped enjoying this alone time, and I really do find a need to be alone with my thoughts, even if that makes me feel antisocial. I notice it most after putting Princess Pirate to bed late. I find myself going to bed too late, because I crave time to myself, often looking to my blog and journal to write my thoughts.

I have also been obsessively watching the Canadian ice dancing pair, Tessa and Scott, since missing the bulk of the Olympics, but seeing their Roxanne program near the end. Since learning their comeback was most recently orchestrated with a move to Montreal, I was inspired by their story of training 13 hours a day, recovering from multiple surgeries (Tessa with compartment syndrome), and the transformation from an idea to a perfected performance. They are uncomfortably adorably conflicted and devoted all at once. Perfectly in sync on ice but never in any public appearance. Still, they are in the best shape of their lives, achieved what most of us could ever dream possible, and seem to have the dearest connection a person can hope for in life. They put in hours no one else would to achieve it, and they were amazing. They also seem quite introverted, but make an effort to share themselves with others (their TED talk).

Even today, with my daughter's bookclub book being chosen this month, and hours in a clinic waiting our turn, I was entertained and entranced by the idea of Phileas Fogg's orderly schedule and house. I don't live like that. Time stresses me. I rarely feel I have enough. But his confidence and efficiency with time, and his complete lack of need to socialize helping this lifestyle is both quirky and motivating.

Lastly, I have been inspired by some greats: the daily goals of Ben Franklin, Eisenhower's matrix, and the Ivy Lee Method are some examples of how to prioritize and keep the busy from preventing the important deliberate practice that is necessary for a valuable life (see self-actualization in Maslow's Heirarchy of Need).

So read, think, walk, talk, consolidate, organize, synthesize, and write. Take time to be alone, but don't waste it. It's precious stuff, and sometimes it is not given in large quantity. Sometimes it needs to carved into the schedule. It helps to live far from family, with fewer liaisons. But it is possible whatever your life circumstances are.

EISENHOWER MATRIX

From: How To Be More Productive

BEN FRANKLIN'S THIRTEEN VIRTUES AND HIS DAILY CHECKLIST

check if successful

a friend's masterpiece, begun in pregnancy with nutritional goals as the start

weekly 

FORGIVENESS

There are some ideas that are taught in religion, but become obvious as morally with time and experience. Forgiveness is one of those concepts.

This blog is a topic I have thought about for a while, but today it was triggered from a news title I saw on the CBC website about some extreme examples of forgiveness that was the topic of a documentary.

Forgiveness is one of those things I was taught to do on behalf of others. As I have come to it another way as an adult, I realize that forgiveness is necessary for oneself. It is another example of a selfish act that is mistaken for a selfless act by many. It is what is required when a romantic love leaves you with no explanation. When someone wrongs you and feels no duty to right the wrong. It is required when you find yourself become bitter from the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". When you are suffering without cause. When you can't move forward unless you give up all the attachments you have to the person who says they want to make amends, but then take their sweet time doing it.

Forgiveness is for yourself. It is an act of survival. It is an act of generosity to yourself. An acceptance of the universe that is not fair.

YOU ONLY HAVE ONE LIFE

Most of us spend our lives as if we had another one in the bank.
--Ben Irwin

Response:
Don't spend your life acting as if you have another one.

Caveat:
You only have one planet. Don't use it as if you have another one.

LOFTY WORDS

GRACE
RESILIENCE
CHARM
RESPONSIBILITY
FORGIVENESS
INTEGRITY
JOY
MODESTY
GENEROSITY
HUMILITY
CHARM
KINDNESS
PATIENCE
TENACITY
WISDOM
DISCIPLINE
LOYALTY
FAITHFULNESS
POLITENESS
HOPE
PUNCTUALITY
RESPECT
HOPE
FAITH
RELIABILITY
PERSEVERENCE
LEADERSHIP
MODERATION
FREEDOM
EQUALITY
COMMUNITY
BROTHERHOOD
LOVE
PEACE
PATIENCE
GENTLENESS
SELF-CONTROL
REDEMPTION
ATONEMENT

LESS VALUABLE
JUSTICE
DUTY
SECURITY
FAIRNESS
SOBRIETY
TENACITY
TOLERANCE

KIDNAPPING AND THE TALIBAN

To my loved ones, if I am ever kidnapped, do not pay my ransom.

It appears that paying works, but the money goes to fund terrorism. That is a terrible conflict to resolve, but I know what I would want. Check out this podcast for more.

THE ENDOWMENT EFFECT

We know it well now, but it used to be assumed that people made economic choices rationally. But one man won a Nobel Prize for proving this to be wrong. Richard Thaler, who came up with the idea of mental accounting, set up an experiment. He gave half the class a free mug, and nothing to the other half. The mug owners were allowed to sell the mugs to the ones without. You would expect rational behaviour of selling the mugs, as it is automatic profit. But it turns out that having something makes you overvalue it. This is the endowment effect. Not all of the mug owners would sell their mugs at the price negotiated. The mug owners valued their mugs double to what the mug buyers wanted to pay. Interesting, right?

We have a lot of wrong ideas when it comes to our mental accounting. Not all days work are equal. We are more likely to spend more with a credit card than with cold hard cash. So it leads me to a couple of other ideas. Is this why hoarders get sentimental about their stuff? And if you have something, make sure you don't overvalue it, and get rid of it for a reasonable amount, probably half of what you think you deserve!

ALL LIVES MATTER AND YOU TOO

We live in an unfair world. There are injustices everywhere. We are all benefiting from someone somewhere at sometime who spoke up on our behalf.

But it makes me cringe when those who speak up label themselves.

I suppose it began for me with feminism. I owe a great deal to the equality movement. I remember reading an excerpt from an Austrian Princess at the museum at the foot of Neuschwanstein who was ashamed to be allowed to study beside men. There was never any self-consciousness about me attending university. I am not sure that the reservations my parents had for me for medical school had all to do with my gender. But I will never in this lifetime be equal to my male colleagues, even often in nursing. If I stand at the bedside with a male nurse or 21 year old male medical school student, with my ID and uniform labelled as doctor,  I would estimate that the majority of time, my colleague is identified as the doctor and I the nurse. How much do my valid statements resonate when the patient is reoriented to me? Are they listening to me as a doctor, or as a female doctor? Why can't a just be the doctor, regardless of my gender? But what I see of the movement of "equality" is the tendency to want more than the other side. As though, because the pendulum has swung too far to one side, it is required to push past the middle and claw away something from the other side. But this is also not equality. So while the innocent child can say, "Anything you can do, I can do better", this is not what the disenfranchised can say to the other side. This is also why I hate to label the sides. We are all a complex mishmash of labels, but each one does not serve to unite us with others, but seems only to divide.

It is appalling what the colour of your skin can mean. I believe whole heartedly that black lives matter, and that atrocities are being committed everyday because of skin colour, and gender, and religion and orientation, and opinion. But if I am not black, I matter too. If I am not female, I matter too. If I don't adhere to your religion or way of thinking, I matter too. If I am not sexual, I matter too. If I disagree with you or you disagree with me, I matter too. But this doesn't help you understand me. And whatever your colour or gender or religious thoughts or orientation or opinions, you matter too.

I feel strongly that you and I are best served to meet simply as humans. It is natural that the next question you ask after meeing someone new, will result in a label. What do you do for a living? Where are you from? I get that we relate when we find commonality. But why can't it be that we relate over our concerns for our children, or the state of the world, or how we can respect each other and live at peace with each other. If we each did something positive for each other, we could take care of each other so easily.

Assassins lose count of their kills, if the spy novels are to be believed. Others lose count of how many people they have sex with. I have lost count of the number of people I have met dead, or dying, but every single one was a grief. Most people have no idea at how incredibly fragile our human body is. One stab to the flank. One high velocity car crash. One gunshot to the head. One cross walk ignored. One bike lane veered into. One irregular beat of the heart, and it's over. Human life is what we must protect. At all costs. It is precious, and precarious. We only get one opportunity. For all people, whatever label.

So if your label is on the wrong side of history, fight for equality. But don't take more from the other side, because that has never worked. Bring the pendulum back to the middle, but don't try and push it, to steal from the other side, or you just become a taker of equality from someone else.

My life, as privileged as it is to be living at this time in this beautiful free country, is never going to be equal to all. But that cannot be my focus, or I will take from someone else what is equality to them. I encourage you to see others as your equal, as human, with incredible potential, and a very brief lifespan. Be vigilant to the human fragility and wonder, and protect each other to your dying day.