When people, especially educated people, think of crappy jobs, postal worker often makes the list. And yet when you stop to think about what really makes people happy in their career, letter carrier offers major advantages compared with jobs that most people fight to land.

Ethically solid.  Many corporate jobs are selling products that are either unnecessary, environmentally wasteful, or marketed to appear better than they are. Nonprofits often obfuscate their inefficiency and ineffectiveness to potential donors. The work of letter carriers is ethically cleaner.

High success rate.  Letter carriers succeed nearly 100 percent of the time—They successfully deliver the mail and, more often than in most fields, get a smile and a thank you.

Out and about. Yes, mail delivery is rain or shine---or as the inscription on the General Post Office in New York City says, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” But many people crave a career in which they’re out and about rather than chained to a desk.

Good pay and great benefits. As of 2012, the average salary of a postal worker was $53,100  Plus the Postal Service covers 80% of group-rate health, dental, and vision insurance plus a Flexible Spending Account. And it matches up to 5% of your income that you contribute to a 401-K-like plan. You get ten paid holidays plus two to four weeks of vacation. HERE are details.

Job security. True, delivery services such as FedEx and UPS are serious competition and there has been serious talk of eliminating Saturday mail delivery. Also, ever more people pay their bills online. But the U.S. Postal Service is starting to deliver parcels on Sundays and holidays, letter carriers are protected by a strong union and, after hiring (and the Postal Service is hiring,) few government workers get fired. So in an era in which companies automate and part-time/temp ever more jobs, job security for letter carriers probably is at least average.

Promotional opportunities. The Postal Service offers comprehensive management and leadership training programs.

The Postal Service is hiring.

To reiterate, the U.S. Postal Service is hiring.

The takeaway

Of course, a career as letter carrier isn’t for everyone. For example, if  you’re an intellectual, you might be bored. But many people tend to unnecessarily constrain their career options because of status. For example, they’d rather be a lawyer even though it always ranks as one of America’s most unhappy jobs.

The message: Status can be the enemy of contentment.

Marty Nemko's bio is in Wikipedia.

Jennifer was standing with a few coworkers at a work social function when she began noticing that she was sweating and her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest. She began to blush and wondered if people could see how sweaty and uncomfortable she was. She imagined how she must look with her face beat red and sweat stains starting to darken her shirt under her armpits and quickly excused herself to hide in the bathroom. Once there she found that she couldn’t go back into the social function and she decided that she would leave early and tell her coworkers that she had gotten ill and had to go home.

Social anxiety is one of the most common anxiety disorders. About 15 million adults have social anxiety and it often begins during childhood or adolescence. When in social situations, socially anxious individuals often shift their attention inward to their physical symptoms of anxiety (their heart rate, breathing rate, sweating, butterflies in their stomach, etc). Then when they notice internal signs of anxiety, they assume that others can see these signs and know that they are anxious. Because socially anxious individuals fear embarrassment, the last thing that they want is for others to know that they are anxious.

Shy and socially anxious people then begin to see themselves as an outside observer would. These images of themselves often contain visible exaggerations (e.g., that their hands are shaking visibly or they are noticeably blushing) that are mistaken for what others actually see. This focus on internal anxiety cues, shift to the perspective of external observer and exaggeration of observable anxiety signs is called self-focused attention. Unfortunately, self-focused attention increases anxiety, reduces concentration and interferes in the ability to participate in a social situation.

So how do you reduce self-focused attention and enjoy the moment?

• Focus on the topic that you are talking about. If you focus on the task at hand, whether the topic of the conversation or the topic of a presentation that you are giving, you may lose yourself in the topic and your anxiety may go down. For example, when I lecture in my classes or give a talk in a crowded auditorium, I often get so excited about the topic that I am talking about that I forget to be nervous.
• Focus on the enjoyable aspects of the experience. For example, if you are at a party and are anxious about being at the party, try to find some good aspects of being at the party. For example, you can smell the food and it smells amazing or you are outside and it is a beautiful day. If you look for the positives in the moment, you take yourself out of your head and you focus on something other than yourself.
• Accept that you are anxious and that is okay. Many people are anxious in public speaking situations and other social situations. If you recognize that you are anxious and you judge that as a negative thing, you will become more anxious and you will focus on your anxiety cues. If you accept that you are anxious and view that as being a common experience, being anxious is far less aversive and has less power over you.
• Practice makes perfect. Deliberately go into social situations that make you anxious. Over time your anxiety will go down and each time that you go into the situation you will experience slightly less anxiety. For more information about facing fears: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-worry-mom/201405/facing-fears-without-pushing-your-child-over-the-edge

For more information about social anxiety:

Andrew Kukes Foundation for Social Anxiety

Anxiety and Depression Association of America

Check out these related posts:

12 Tips to Reduce your Child’s Stress and Anxiety

When You Feel Like Giving Up

Copyright Amy Przeworski.  This post and all portions of this post may NOT be duplicated or posted elsewhere (including on other websites) without permission of the author.  However, a link to this post may be posted on your website without the need to request permission.

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By the time I see couples in my office, they have tried to do everything they can on their own to work through the difficulties they are encountering. They’ve run into a wall that is either caused by an accumulation of sorrows or a significant crisis, or a combination of the two. They’ve depleted their own internal resources and their energy to replete them is dangerously low. Often bruised and defeated, they are coming into counseling with a desperate plea for direction. Their eyes beg the questions: should they try to re-create a better relationship, take some time away from each other to reformulate, or give up?

In that first critical session, we must make the tentative decision together as to whether there is hope for regeneration. That conclusion is based on the answers to five questions: Do both partners want the same thing? Is there enough energy left in the relationship to give them the fuel they need to repair and recommit? How have they resolved traumas in the past or are they buried in repetitive patterns that have never worked? Are they running away before they’ve given resolution a chance? Are there underlying, hidden issues that are sabotaging their chances to reconnect? Do they still want to try?

In the next few crucial hours of therapy, we often are searching for those answers in midst of hostility, hurt, injustice, or the need to justify winning. Sometimes one partner has the role of the injured party and the other is remorseful and humiliated. At other times they are two people who have been building up relationship conflicts that have never been resolved and have now become emotional cancers out of control, now finding a voice because of a current crisis. Their styles of battling are exaggerated and helpless and they are not able to hear the other in the din of their own pain. Other couples are in a war of silence; the first to speak with any attachment to connect loses power.

As we process what has brought them into therapy and identify the origins of their distress and the negative patterns they’ve rehearsed, I am looking for eight rays of hope that will tell me, and them, that we have a chance. Despite the most terrible of betrayals, the most anguishing of hurtful behaviors, or the most discouraging of disappointments, these subtle but crucial revelations can predict whether or not they can find their way back to the love they once knew. When I see them, no matter how infrequent or indistinct, I know that we can work towards resolution.

Attentiveness

When one partner is speaking, however his or her tone of voice, the other partner is looking and listening to what is being said. Even if there is disagreement, it is evident that what is being communicated is still important. The partners may have a history of interruption, over-talking, dismissing, or minimizing, but will stop those behaviors when I ask them to and redirect their attention to what the other is saying. If I ask either of them to repeat what the other partner has communicated, they genuinely try. When I ask them what they think the other is feeling or meaning, they want to learn to tell me. When either partner begins to cry or can’t talk, the other stops the interaction until that distressed partner can resume. I see that both are capable of stopping their own drivers-to-be-the-righteous-one and to remember that there are two of them in the room.

Concern

Couples who have lost each other’s trust and support, whether just recently, or over a long period of time, still may show concern when either expresses authentic heartbreak. They may not be able to use soothing words or gestures, especially if being blamed in the moment, but they show consideration for their partner’s distress by their body language or facial expression. It is as if they know where the breaking point is and do not want to go there. Compassion rules over dominance when the other partner drops into a genuine place of heartache.

Shared Humor

There are times when I’ve been with a distressed couple where it appears that the hostility between them has taken over the relationship. They are arguing about the way they are arguing. They are unable to find anything in the other worthwhile to listen to. They are interrupting, invalidating, and yelling at one another. I feel like a referee in a professional emotional boxing match.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, one of them refers to an experience they’ve shared in the past, or something that is happening between them, and they both start to laugh. The tension is immediately gone, even for just a moment, and both are looking at one another as if they are really just good friends playing at hating each other. Even if the fight resumes, it is evident that what they are talking about is not all of who they are and I know I can get them down under their self-destructive interactions.

De-escalation

Every couple knows how far is too far. Sadly, that underlying knowledge does not always keep them from walking too close to that cliff and many relationships end because of that sacrilege. The de-escalation ray of hope happens when I see a couple recognizing when they are too close to saying or doing something that the other cannot get past. Seemingly out of nowhere and certainly out of character, one or both stops the interaction or takes it to a more caring place. They have a shared knowing that certain words or ways of being may hurt too much to ever heal, or some actions from the past cut too deeply. It is clear to me that they have an invisible pact that keeps them from going over the edge.

Immediacy

It is natural for most people to use the past or other people to add clout to whatever they want their partners to believe or accept as valid in the moment. That is especially true when one partner feels he or she is losing the argument, and feels that fortifying it with examples from the past or endorsements from other significant people will bolster its effectiveness.

Couples who are good communicators stay with one issue at a time and talk about what they need from each other in the present. They don’t try to persuade the other of a position that will be satisfying for them at the expense of the other. If one of them begins to falter, the other brings them back to the problem at hand and that tactic is not only accepted, but appreciated.

Basic Trust

No matter how angry, hurt, or vengeful a couple acts towards each other in that first session, I can see that their distress with the situation at hand in no way suggests that their partners are basically flawed or unacceptable people. Challenges of acts of behaviors are very different from character assassinations. The issue at hand may have sorely undermined the relationship in their current crisis or long-term distance, but they would never state that the other person was unworthy of their love or basic respect.

Self-Accountability

Pointing fingers as to who is to blame is a power play. The bad guy must be identified and properly dealt with, and the good-guy victor wins the battle and loses the war. So many fights between couples are immersed in this assignment of accountability and whatever “appropriate” consequences are assigned. There is that magic moment in therapy when both partners realize that they’ll play a winning game when each owns their individual contribution to what has gone wrong. It sometimes takes some skill building, but it is unmistakably remarkable to witness when the interaction turns in that direction.

Energy

There is no hope where there is no life. I’ll take a passionate, angry, upset couple any time over two people who sit in the room wishing they could be anywhere else and disappearing in to two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. The door to the outside office might as well be made of concrete and bars as a room I treasure as a haven begins to feel more like a prison.

A once-loving couple who allows their relationship to diminish into a lifeless, complicated set of rituals has the biggest burden to bear by far. High angry energy can morph into high loving energy. Deadness is hard to revive.

It may be hard to visualize an angry or wounded couple evidencing any of these seven rays of hope in the midst of their anguishing conflicts. But if you don’t overlook them, they are often just under the surface waiting and wanting to emerge. I know that a couple wants to get beyond their distress when they are excited about those “aha” moments when I identify them, and immediately commit to replacing their old behaviors with the new ones. They quickly realize that those repeated negative patterns have been the culprits that have gotten them in trouble and they both want them gone. As they are identified and challenged, that couple is likely to find their love again, and know what they now need to do to regain their commitment. Though it may take many new moments to leave the darkness behind, the light is on.

You don’t have to be in therapy to identify and strengthen these responses in your relationship. You can find these rays of hope within your relationship if you are willing to put yourselves aside and make your relationship more important than your need to prove who’s right. But if you feel lost and unable to identify them on your own, find a competent observer to help you find your way.

Dr. Randi’s free advice e-newsletter, Heroic Love, shows you how to avoid the common pitfalls that keep people from finding and keeping romantic love. Based on over 100,000 face-to-face hours counseling singles and couples over her 40-year career, you’ll learn how to zero in on the right partner, avoid the dreaded “honeymoon is over” phenomenon, and make sure your relationship never gets boring. www.heroiclove.com

Having a friend who is contemplating suicide can be very scary. Your friend may try to swear you to secrecy, but don't make that promise. The best thing that you can do for your friend is to tell a trusted adult. If your friend has told you that he/she is thinking about suicide, consider it a cry for help. Your friend needs to speak with a trained counseling professional. 

Did you know that most people who follow through with suicide don't want to die? They just don't know another way to stop the pain. You can help your friend by reaching out to a trusted adult, a teacher or a school counselor for assistance. School Counselors are trained professionals that will help your friend get the therapeutic help he/she needs. If your friend tells you he/she is thinking about suicide via phone or text, call 911 and let an adult know immediately. If your friend's home alone, keep him/her on the phone and have someone else call 911. Being alone can be very frightening and it allows the mind to wander. That's why it's important to get someone in route to your friend ASAP. Don't wait. 

Sometimes you may suspect that your friend is thinking about suicide, but you aren't sure what to say. Let’s face it: it’s not an easy subject to discuss. Maybe you think if you talk about suicide, it will cause your friend to follow through with it. If so, don't worry; this is a common myth. Talking about suicide does not cause it. Oftentimes people who are having suicidal thoughts want help. Think about it, these are dark and scary thoughts that your friend is carrying around. Sometimes letting them out and talking about them makes him/her feel better. So if you suspect your friend is thinking about suicide, go ahead and ask. Reaching out to your friend will let him/her know that you are there and more importantly, that you care.

Does your friend show any of the signs?

It’s not uncommon for people to have some of these signs at some point in their lives, but people who are thinking about suicide experience them more intensely and more often.

• change in eating and sleeping habits

• withdrawal from friends and family

• pulling away from once enjoyed activities

• explosive episodes

• impulsive and risk-taking behaviors

• drug and alcohol use

• poor personal hygiene

• changes in personality

• difficulty concentrating

• decline in academic work

• physical symptoms minus illness (stomachaches, headaches, fatigue, etc.)

A friend who is thinking about suicide may:

• put himself/herself down a lot, or frequently talk about being a bad person

• say things like: "I won’t be around much longer.""Soon everything will be better.""I wish I were dead.""It's no use, why try.""I'd be better off dead.""Life is useless."

• give away favorite things, throw away important personal items, clean up and organize belongings, etc.

• become overly happy after a period of depression

• have strange hallucinations or weird thoughts

If your friend has reached out to you, don't worry about what to say; a hug can go a long way. Your friend has told you for a reason; he/she trusts you. Be an encourager and let your friend know that things will get better. Let your friend know that you care deeply for his/her safety. Help your friend connect with other adults. These people can help find your friend professionals that can help.

While helping your friend is important, so is taking care of yourself. Don't carry the weight of your friend's feelings on your shoulders; they will weigh you down. You are not responsible for your friend's happiness, nor are you responsible for his/her decisions. The best way to help your friend is to find the right balance between being caring while taking care of your own needs.

Resources:

American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

http://www.aacap.org/

Healthy Place

http://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/psychiatric-disorder-defin...

Help Guide

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/depression/teen-depression-sign...

The Trevor Project

http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

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Dr. Stephen Seager

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"You want to hear something amazing? We're thirty miles from San Quentin, and we've had people here who've worked in both places. Napa is considered a much more dangerous job. We lose doctors and staff to San Quentin because it's safer by a multiple of ten to work at a state prison than at the state mental hospital."

This a direct quote from Dr. Stephen Seager, author of the astounding book Behind the Gates of Gomorrah: A Year with the Criminally Insane. Seager, sixty-four, began writing the book, his sixth, as a way to tell the story of what goes on inside. As it evolved, he realized it was much more. It's an advocacy project for the staff and patients of Napa State Hospital, as brutal and violent a place as there is in the United States.

I've covered my share of disturbing books for Biographile, but they've tended to be mostly personal stories that areredemptive. Due to the ongoing horror shows that are America's state mental hospitals, Behind the Gates of Gomorrah is far more harrowing. The realities are horrific, seemingly permanent, and wide in scope.

If you've always imagined mental hospitals to be dark, isolated, Dickensian torture chambers along the lines of Scorsese's "Shutter Island," get ready to revise those notions. They're open, free, and so much worse. As Dr. Seager explains, it can be a hospital or a prison, but it can't be both.

BIOGRAPHILE: Prior to becoming a psychiatrist, you worked as an ER doctor. Why did you change careers?

STEPHEN SEAGER: I worked for ten years as an ER physician at the only level one trauma center in Phoenix, and I just got burned out. We'd have three, four, five codes going at once, and it got be too much. I decided to do something different, got retrained, did a second residency, and became a psychiatrist. I landed in the psychiatric emergency room, which was right next door. I did four years of training to move one foot. I must be drawn to this kind of thing, because I eventually ended up at Napa.

BIOG: Did you have any inkling of what the job would be like when you took it?

SS: No. In fact, I went to Napa State Hospital thinking it would be different, a nice quiet change of pace. It isn't. In the orientation, they didn't say much of anything, and then my first day on the unit, there was a huge brawl where a patient fractured another patient's skull with a chair, and I ended up with stitches in my head. It's basically been the same thing every day since. We have over 3,000 assaults a year. We had five alarms yesterday.

BIOG: It was so hard to wrap my head around what goes on in state mental hospitals. Violent people, some of the worst of the worst, have no restrictions on them whatsoever. Is this common knowledge? I had no idea.

SS: It's not even common knowledge within the psychiatric community. Nobody knows what goes on in state mental hospitals. I'd sent patients to Napa but still had no idea what I was getting into, what goes on behind the twenty-foot wall with a razor-wire top. No outsiders can get in. They stonewall the media, which is why the conditions go so underreported. I tried to find a book about life inside a mental hospital, but there weren't any. That was the impetus for writing Behind the Gates of Gomorrah. We've had staff and patients murdered, and it gets a bit of press, but there's a real code of silence. And it's not just Napa; it's all 200 of them across the country. In every single one, the staff and patients, including mentally ill folks who committed no crimes, are getting the hell beat out of them, and nobody is doing anything to help.

BIOG: And it's been going on for quite a while, right?

SS: For decades. A few years ago, a staff member was murdered about ten feet outside my office. I researched and found out there was someone murdered in the exact same spot fifteen years ago. It goes on and on. It's not about me: I'm well paid and can leave whenever I want. It's about the staff and even more, the patients, who just have to put up with the constant abuse. They can't leave, and they can't get better if they're being beaten up all the time.

BIOG: Why haven't any doctors spoken out about this before?

SS: Every doctor I've worked with has been assaulted at some point, had bones broken, or whatever. They usually leave Napa to recover, and we never hear from them again. Everyone inside is kind of isolated and segregated. I hope the book can establish some common ground between patients, their families, and staff, so everyone understands they're not alone. As it is now, it's the most unsafe place in America, and it has to stop.

BIOG: I imagine most people, like myself, assumed mental hospitals were isolated dungeons where prisoners have no freedom, but it's the exact opposite.

SS: You think it's like "Silence of the Lambs," right? Hannibal Lecter in a cage? It's not like that at all. It's a hospital, and the patients are not prisoners. They're as free as anyone at any hospital. They have rooms, roommates, eat in the cafeteria, et cetera. They aren't allowed to leave the building without an escort, but inside, all of the criminally insane of Northern California are free to roam the halls. It breeds violence. For everyone's benefit, we need Napa to be more restrictive. Half our staff consists of female nurses, and half of them are out on disability for being punched, raped, or victims of attempted rape. It's unbelievable. People may not want to hear it, but it just can't be.

BIOG: Even as we're talking, I'm thinking of the Thanksgiving dinner depicted in your book. Patients' families were allowed in for dinner, but they weren't separated from the child rapists and murderers.

SS: That is a dead true story. I watched kids going into the visitor center, a condensed area right along with the child molesters. Family visits are great, but kids should not be eating turkey with some of California's most notorious killers. It's madness. We have patients who will murder or maim a roommate, get sent away for a couple of weeks, return, and get put right back in the same room. There's no such thing as common sense at Napa. It doesn't apply.

BIOG: I should add that there are some nice moments in the book as well, even if they're fleeting.

SS: Some of my best friends are mass murderers. As a physician, you can't hate your patients. I play softball with people whose crimes were too hideous for me to get through their files, but they aren't punching people 24/7. You can't face grim things without a sense of humor. Relationships form with patients, and some have to be let go for getting too personal. People are human. Life is funny, even in Napa. Especially in Napa.

BIOG: How does a criminal end up there?

SS: Well, there are two classifications: not guilty by reason of insanity, where you didn't know what you were doing, period. The other is incompetent to stand trial, in which the defendant will face charges, but not at present time. In both cases, the person is sent for treatment. We've had patients who dodged the electric chair. Here's the crazy thing, though, and not just in left-wing California: If you're a patient, even one convicted of murder, you can refuse treatment. By law, patients don't have to take medication.

BIOG: There's also the caveat that criminals can game the system. The most sadistic man in Napa is a meth head, but not insane.

SS: We have plenty of murderers who faked their way inside. They're conmen, and they're really good at it. They read up on the symptoms and know how to act in court in front of a judge so it appears they are mentally insane. They dodge the hangman and end up in our gym playing basketball. It drives us crazy because they're the most difficult to treat.

BIOG: Can you give us a brief explanation of how we got to this point?

SS: In the 1960s, the big problem was that we were warehousing people. They were incarcerated in the hospital without getting any treatment. The theory arose that it was the institution itself that caused chronic mental illness. Through a series of laws, a lot of state hospitals were emptied and closed. Many of these mentally ill people are now homeless. The theory that being confined is what made them sick was wrong, and now, patients come to us from jail, which is the new warehouse. L.A. County Jail's psychiatric ward is the largest in the country.

The other thing that came out of the sixties was something called the "anti-psychiatry movement." It's basically people who think all psychiatry, medication, treatment, et cetera is bad. A lot of people in government today came out of it. They have the mindset that not everyone needs to be hospitalized, which is true, but the ones that do – especially the ones that have committed major crimes – need treatment. Patients' rights attorneys argue on behalf of patient safety, but the reality is, they're advocating for completely unsafe conditions. The whole system needs a shock. It's gone down the rabbit hole and been taken to an illogical extreme.

BIOG: If you could change one thing today, what would it be?

SS: Mandatory medication orders with guard presence. Patients who need drugs would not be allowed to refuse them.

BIOG: Can treatment work for the patients when they're constantly living in fear?

SS: Imagine if you went to get your appendix out, and while you were sleeping, your roommate knocks the shit out of you. This happens all the time. Most of our patients do want to get better and will when treated properly. We have a sixty percent success rate, but it's delayed or halted when you're beaten silly. Regardless of their crime, they are still patients in a hospital trying to heal. This book is my attempt to be an advocate for them. They bear the brunt of all this awful stuff.

BIOG: What it's like among the staff, witnessing the constant brutality?

SS: Everyone is traumatized. People are constantly going out on disability due to stress. I tell people all the time, "Imagine if two people in your office were assaulted every week. Would you want to work there?"

BIOG: No, and it's clear in the book that your wife and son who still lives at home aren't crazy about your working there.

SS: Begrudging acceptance is what I would call it. My wife is also a physician, so she gets it to some degree, but they both know it's bad, as do my other four children. I've never been a military person, but I think it's a bit like combat, in that when your life is in danger every day, it's impossible to explain, but there is something inside that doesn't want to leave your fellow soldiers. However, you can't live at the front all the time. I don't talk about work at home.

BIOG: Let's end on an upbeat note. What do you do for fun?

SS: Thankfully, I've never had a problem separating work and home. I don't carry it with me. My wife and I are runners. We did four half-marathons last year, and we are tournament badminton players. Most people think of it as a backyard barbecue game. It's not. It's super-competitive.

BIOG:  Sorry, but I can't help asking: Why do you continue to work there?

SS: One reason I'm continuing to work at Napa is because I sincerely hope Behind the Gates of Gomorrah will help people understand what goes on inside and lead to change. If I quit now, it's easier to deny what's in the book – to discredit me and call me a liar. I think my employment there lends the book more gravitas. I'm committed to this because I think it's important. If I can have one patient not get beat up, it will be worth it. Someone has to stand and say things have to change. It's bad for the staff, but it's worse for the patients. They're sent to Napa to get treatment, and they're getting pummeled. The answer can't just be to quit.

Earlier this week I was talking with a friend while doing my exercises. It's a bit of a ritual that we have developed when she started calling me every day some time after the Shiva ended (for my sister, Inbal, see "Loss, Empty Space, and Community"). I do my exercises, sometimes she does hers, and we talk about our day, or anything else that comes up. In the midst of exercising and talking, I realized the obvious: not doing well is just the way it must be during this period. There is no hidden deficiency anywhere in me or elsewhere, and there is nothing I or anyone else can do to make me do well.

Although this bare and simple clarity came to me as a fresh insight, I knew it already when I was scrambling to find ways of creating community. Although I couldn't figure out how to move towards the kind of community I would most dearly want to have, with people living close by and being involved in each other's lives, I did take one small step as the Shiva was winding down. I set up a weekly call with a small group of people who happened to be here at that time. That strategy emerged while talking with them about how I could remain mindful, so I don't fill the spaces with more unchosen things, so I remain true to the intention to have my life be purposeful, chosen, aligned. The purpose of these 30-minute calls was to hold me accountable to the task of moving through this period with choice and clarity, without overwhelm, and with support.

The first of these calls is already a blur. By the second, last Friday, I was already struggling to fully receive the support. I knew I needed it, because I was aware that I wasn't managing on my own. The clearest evidence of this is about scheduling. For years now, well before Inbal was diagnosed with cancer, my life was overfull. Certainly, attending to as many responsibilities as I have been for years, and doing that on top of a significant and ongoing commitment to participating in Inbal's care, was deeply unsustainable, and I had resigned myself to a high degree of stress.

I had hoped that removing the biggest stimulus for filling my schedule, namely my responsibility for my work, and having more human contact, support, and accountability, would make a significant dent. Instead, what's been happening was that I ended up filling my days with other things instead of work, with just as little intentional, clear choice about what I was putting into my calendar and why.

I have no significant idea what is really needed to change my pattern of saying "yes" to one more thing and then one more thing. I only know that the call was a highlight, because of being a moment in which there's no distraction; when I can have complete and total focus on the issue. That is the condition most conducive to talking openly about how I might transform the habit of disappearing into the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. Just the alignment of being with people and seeing what is going on allowed me to own the deep truth that I feel too small to be able to handle life on my own. For those moments, I could stop the incessant internal scramble to hold things together, and have that longed-for experience of being held, of my dignity and beauty being seen, and of my challenges being surrounded with tenderness.

While the specific thing I am struggling with - overscheduling without mindful choice - is perhaps unique to me, the need for community isn't. The idea that we ought to be able to handle our challenges on our own is what I call into question. On my own, without support to see deeply what's leading to my choices, I vanish into a profound resignation about making life work for me. With others' support, I can gain strength and clarity.

Self-Sufficiency, Self-Reliance, and Self-Responsibility

I don't actually have any expectation of myself that I "should" be able to handle life on my own. I don't have that expectation of anyone, whether their specific challenges are similar (I know many of us are challenged around mindful scheduling) or vastly different. Rather, I mourn how life is structured in such a way that this expectation is the backdrop against which we form our sense of self. This is the fundamental myth of self-sufficiency.

This is the context in which I see myself as a canary: although we all need community, just like all animals need oxygen, some of us are more acutely affected than others. Being a canary means that I notice, in my body and heart, the devastating effect of this expectation, even in those moments of not finding a way to put myself on the line, become the exception, make myself vulnerable to judgment and ridicule. I still, despite decades of being an adult, have the fundamental sensibility of a small child who knows very clearly, with or without words, that we need others in order to attend to our own needs. Being a leader, in this context, to me means using the extra "canary" sensitivity for the benefit of all, serving to remind all of us of the essential need for community: love from the outside is fuel, in the absence of which we have to work harder to have the freedom to be human and express ourselves in the ways that we want.

I have written before, more than once, about the perils of the injunction to be self-sufficient. (See, for example, Choosing Interdependence.) What I have not done yet is to make the careful and difficult distinction between self-sufficiency and self-reliance. My way of seeing it is that self-sufficiency means having all the necessary resources to attend to my needs without having any need for anyone else. Again, I see this a profoundly misguided notion that contributes to isolation, pretense, and self-judgments. Self-reliance, on the other hand, is about having the capacity to mobilize my own resources, whatever they truly are, in order to attend to my needs.

Ironically, it seems to me that in modern, industrialized countries, we have less and less knowledge about what our true resources really are, both physically and emotionally. We are, generally, less knowledgeable about attending to our physical needs, more dependent on getting products and services for money. We are also, generally, less willing to step into discomfort in order to reach for something important to us, more prone to allowing safety, convenience, and ease rule the day.

Self-responsibility, to round up these confusing and somewhat overlapping concepts, is about taking responsibility for knowing what my needs are, ascertaining what resources are likely to attend to those needs, and taking action to mobilize these resources, whether from within (self-reliance) or from without. Part of it is not pretending to have more resources than I have. If I fully embrace my interdependent nature, I can become fully open to receiving from others as needed. In practical terms, taking charge of making life work means, amongst many things, learning how to make more and more requests instead of fewer and fewer. It entails parting ways with the ideal that we have internalized, the ideal that says that needing things is a weakness or a form of selfishness, or both.

Subtle Hiding

One of the things that I expressed on last week's call was that people see me through the lens of how capable and functional I am, while the fundamental inability at the core of it is invisible, resulting in it being more difficult for me to get the support I need.

This invisibility also reproduces itself. Few people know how much unmanageability there is inside me, or how costly it is to constantly compensate for it. It's not surprising, because the residual impulse towards self-sufficiency that continues to live in me makes it unlikely that I will expose it. Even when I have support, even when I talk with really close people several times a week, I still talk from the place of functioning, not from within the inability. I think of it in this way: the mindless scheduling is what I need community and support for, and my challenge in fully showing my struggle is what prevents me from accessing community and support when they are available.

I am clearer than ever that functioning at such high speed and with so little breathing space in between engagements means that I often don't even know what I need, let alone devise strategies for attending to my needs. I discover all too late when I have overdone anything. I was not surprised when, at this part of the conversation, others started expressing a sense of companionship in recognizing the stress, loneliness, and despair that are the common costs of external competence.

Although I know that this struggle is common, and that the need for others is essential to humanity, I experience bouts of humiliation when I speak about it. The source of it is simply believing that others can mask the struggle better than me. Having people be on a call with me, to support me, when I know they are not likely to ask for that same kind of support for themselves, leaves me in considerable anguish and helplessness.

Simply put: my choices and my circumstances combine to create a profound dilemma for me. I am dependent on others in ways that I cannot avoid. Although I am fully embracing this dependence as part of my conviction about what it means to be human, the sense of being out of choice about something that others can choose is a level of vulnerability I am still working to accept fully. As much as I am aware of the need, I also have internalized, deeply, the expectation to manage on my own, and thus I undermine my ability to have access to support even when it's there.

Instead of showing it all, I end up "packaging" myself again and again and again even with the closest people, as if to reassure them that I am OK even when I am not. It's quite subtle, since I am constitutionally quite incapable of lying or hiding in a purposeful way. As best I can understand this, I want both my strength and my challenges to be seen at the same time, and deep inside I probably don't trust that can happen. This experience leaves me feeling all alone even when surrounded by so much love.

I don't have an expectation of a quick fix to this challenge, both because it's so long-standing, and because I am up against so much in our culture that reinforces the pressure to function, to deny dependence, and to hide need. I do know, more clearly, where I am aiming. It's not about figuring out, once and for all, the puzzle of my schedule - for that, I will continue to need support from others. Rather, it's about continuing to move towards the discomfort, so I can be unabashed about my human needs and get the support necessary. The solution is not about some new method for time management, which would keep me trapped in functioning, and still alone. The only practice I am aiming for, if I can get there, is to notice the packaging and reach for a deeper level of truth that I can articulate. Telling my friend, on the phone, that I am not doing well, was the result of this renewed resolve. It is a form of self-responsibility, and a challenge to self-sufficiency.

There's more to this, much more. About how we, as a species, have moved further and further away from immediacy of contact into more and more abstract, impersonal, and asynchronous forms of relating, which lend themselves to growing without limits. When I am able to hold that awareness, I have more understanding of my scheduling challenge as a common modern tragedy. Perhaps reminding myself of this tragedy will eventually allow me to release the experience of humiliation and come to trust the possibility that my own willingness to be so raw and exposed might truly inspire others to do the same; that my being a canary truly is a form of leadership, of inviting others to come back to our fundamental longings and align with our evolutionary makeup. I wonder why "Thou shalt not live alone" is not one of the commandments.

For now, all I know to do is to notice, within myself, how glad I am to share love with the people I have in my life, and how much this conversation, these topics, feel vital. I also know I seek companionship in exposing rather than hiding our human vulnerability. Before writing this piece, I read an article by Michael Lerner in Tikkun called God and Goddess Emerging, in which he explores, among many other topics that I found deeply inspiring, the Jewish notion that God needs humans as partners. I was struck by this sentence in particular: "For a Greek imperialist or a male chauvinist, a god with feelings and needs must be a lesser god." These traditions, the Hellenistic as well as the patriarchal, are the foundations of our disdain for vulnerability, in ourselves and, by extension, in our gods. As hard as it is to question this legacy from within an experience of vulnerability and need, I can't think of a better way for me to make use of the challenge I am facing now. It is my hope that my choosing this form of love of self that so honors Inbal's wisdom and love of me is also a way to love others, to love life, and to invite us all to reclaim the longing and capacity for love that are part of our makeup.

I visited a support group for the parents of hyper kids a long time ago. My son, at times anxious and impulsive, was, I’d been told, only “situationally hyperactive,” which wasn’t much help. But listening to those other parents was eye-opening. Their kids seemed truly uncontrollable. And the parents were miserable.

I still have the notes I made when I was trying various diets and structured reward plans (stickers on a chart, with prizes). Therefore a lot of what I read in Hyper: A Personal History of ADHDby Timothy Denevi, was very familiar to me, from the “other side.”

Denevi, who received his MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa, has been awarded various fellowships, and is the Nonfiction Visiting Writer in the MFA program at George Mason University. He’s also a worthy documenter of his own early years. He uses what he remembers to share the inner world of a kid who doesn’t fit in because he’s too loud, interrupts too much, and whose impulsiveness got him into a lot of fights.

What’s unusual about Denevi’s book is that he skillfully intersperses the history of how society and the medical and therapeutic professions have dealt with those like him. Call it hit and miss, call it misguided or ignorant, or call it a greedy plot by psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies to drug American kids: the result is that each and every family has to work hard to find appropriate help for their hyper and/or inattentive kids.

Denevi’s parents, who argued about him a lot (as my ex and I did over our son), tried everything from Ritalin to Adderall, anti-depressants to long-term therapy.

But Denevi doesn’t come to hard and fast conclusions after surveying the literature and history. In fact, in the final chapter (before the Epilogue where he catches us up with his life and shares what mostly works for him, he writes:

If more than a hundred years have been spent researching ADHD—conducting clinical trials, honing methodology, and evaluating certain approaches against others—why is it still so difficult to diagnose and treat the disorder in a way that addresses individual circumstances?

If someone in your family may have ADHD, older books and theories may be of less use to you.  Instead, Denevi’s book would be a fine place to start investigating your options.

Copyright (c) 2014 by Susan K. Perry, author of Kylie’s Heel 

A wide range of recent studies have found that physical activity can trigger neurobiological changes that may help protect your brain from depression.

A September 2014 study from Sweden found that physical activity might help shield your brain from stress-induced depression. The researchers found that exercise triggers a chain reaction that blocks the ability of a substance called kynurenine—which is linked to depression in humans and mice—from crossing the blood-brain barrier. 

The Swedish study, “Skeletal Muscle PGC-1a1 Modulates Kynurenine Metabolism and Mediates Resilience to Stress-Induced Depression," was published in the journal Cell.

In the new study on mice, the researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm found that exercise triggers changes in skeletal muscle that purges the blood of kynurenine which has been known to accumulate in muscles during stressful experiences. 

The conversion of kynurenine to kynurenic acid that takes place in muscles during physical exercise may protect the brain from this depressive substance. Exercise appears to negate the depressive effects of kynurenine, but more human and animal studies are needed.

In a press release, Mia Lindskog, researcher at the Department of Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet said, "In neurobiological terms, we actually still don't know what depression is. Our study represents another piece in the puzzle, since we provide an explanation for the protective biochemical changes induced by physical exercise that prevent the brain from being damaged during stress.”

3 Scientific Reviews Conclude that Exercise Can Help Alleviate Depression

1. A September 2014 review from the University of Bern, “Effects of Exercise on Anxiety and Depression Disorders: Review of Meta- Analyses and Neurobiological Mechanisms” concluded that physical activity can help combat depression.

The researchers at Bern found that physical activity can trigger neurophysiological changes that are similar to those of antidepressants. Based on their meta- analysis, the researchers conclude that being physically active on a regular basis can be an effective elixir for reducing the symptoms of depression.

2. An October 2013 review from the University of Toronto found that moderate exercise can help treat and prevent depression. PhD candidate George Mammen's review was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 

For this review, Mammen analyzed over 26 years' worth of research findings. Based on this analysis, he concluded that even low levels of physical activity (walking and gardening for 20-30 minutes a day) can ward off depression in people of all age groups. 

This was the first longitudinal review to focus exclusively on the role that exercise plays in maintaining good mental health and preventing the onset of depression later in life. Mammen concluded that moderate exercise can treat—and prevent—episodes of depression in the long term.

3.  A third review published in The Cochrane Library in September 2013 found that exercise may benefit people suffering from depression. The authors of the review found evidence to suggest that exercise reduces symptoms of depression, although they say more high quality trials are needed.

In conclusion, the reviewers recommend that future research should take a detailed look at what specific types of exercise could most benefit people with depression, as well as, the frequency, intensity, and duration of workout sessions that deliver optimal results.

Conclusion: Could Increased Sedentarism Be Linked to an Increase in Depressive Symptoms Globally?

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 350 million people around the globe are affected by depression. Have you ever experienced symptoms of depression? Are you currently depressed? If so, what has been most effective for helping you combat depression? 

An October 2014 study by San Diego State University psychology professor Jean M. Twenge found that Americans are more depressed today than they have been in decades. Could the increase in depression be linked to an epidemic of sedentarism?

If you are looking for another reason to motivate yourself to be more physically active, hopefully these findings will be a motivation and inspiration. 

Follow me on Twitter @ckbergland for updates on The Athlete’s Way blog posts.

People keep secrets mainly because the consequences of revealing the secrets can be damaging to themselves or others. Some feel ashamed and keep a secret for fear of being ridiculed or discriminated against. Others might keep a secret because they do not want to be seen to deviate from social norms or hurt others. Keeping a secret, whether it is your secret or someone else’s, is a mental burden, a load on your mind. It requires that you always be on guard, so that the secret doesn’t slip out. Yet people often fail to keep secrets and sometimes decide to reveal their own. People frequently report feeling as though a weight has been lifted off their chests after revealing a secret. Latin singer Ricky Martin posted a public statement on his official website in 2010 explained that he used to hide his sexual orientation as a result of pressure society imposed on him and wrote, “I was carrying within me for a long time things that were too heavy for me to keep inside.” Recently Michael Slepian from |Tufts University together with his colleagues E.J. Masicampo, Negin R. Toosi and Nalini Ambady found that those who keep important secrets display behaviors that are similar to those of people who actually carry a physical weight.

The researchers conducted four studies. In the first study, researchers asked participants to recall a secret. Half were asked to recall a meaningful and important personal secret and the other half a small personal secret. Participants were then asked to estimate the steepness of a hill in an ostensibly unrelated study. Those who thought about meaningful and important secrets estimated the hill as steeper. The important secrets were indeed perceived as physical weight and consequently influenced the people as an actual physical weight would have: the hills seemed steeper to those carrying a secret. In a second experiment, the researchers asked half of the participants to recall an important, meaningful secret and the other half a trivial secret. They found that, like those who carry an actual weight, those who recalled an important secret perceived a distance as farther than those who recalled a trivial secret. In the third study, researchers focused on one particular secret, infidelity. They recruited participants who had recently reported being unfaithful and asked them to what extent they were troubled by their infidelity and how much they thought about it. They then asked them to estimate how much effort and energy they would need to perform six common tasks. Half of the tasks required physical effort, such as climbing the stairs with groceries or helping someone move, and half required no physical effort, such as giving someone directions or change. The more participants said they thought about their infidelity and were bothered by it, the more effort and energy they estimated they would need to perform physical tasks. This difference was not found for tasks that did not require physical effort. In their fourth experiment, the researchers asked thirty gay men to participate in a study dealing with self-presentation. They asked the participants to answer questions while they were being filmed. Half of the participants were asked to conceal their sexual orientation, while the other half were asked to conceal another trait, extroversion. The idea was that sexual orientation is a more important and meaningful secret than the fact that one is an extrovert. At the end of the experiment, participants were asked to help move books out of the laboratory under the pretense that the lab was being relocated. But really the researchers were measuring how many books each participant moved: the more books he moved, the more willing he was to make a physical effort. Those who concealed their sexual orientation moved fewer books than those who concealed their extroverted personalities. The more important, meaningful secret affected the participants like a physical weight.

These results show that people who carry secrets feel physically burdened and experience a sensation similar to constantly carrying a heavy weight on their shoulders. Big, consequential secrets, such as one’s sexual orientation, a traumatic experience, infidelity, and illness, weigh us down and feel like an actual physical burden.

In order to ease the burden, the keeper of a secret may find it helpful to write in a journal, speak with a therapist, or confide in a close, trusted friend. Online support groups or other safe outlets can provide very necessary release, unburdening us while allowing us to maintain anonymity. The weight of secrets can be very hard to carry; these studies teach us that it is important to release those burdens because they physically affect us.

It seems that people are getting offended more easily.

Perhaps that’s a good thing. For example, there’s ever less tolerance for a statement or action that could even vaguely be considered racist, sexist, homophobic, elitist, or ageist.

Some would say zero tolerance, even for a mild joke in that area, is the best approach to eradicating it.

On the other hand, hypersensitivity to such offenses has potential downsides. For example, it could encourage making such claims even when illegitimate or trivial as a way to deflect attention from the true issue. For example, an older worker overhears his boss saying, “This place needs fresh blood.” In fact, the older worker may not be pulling his weight but to avoid getting fired, he files a grievance claiming a hostile work environment for older workers. He does that to help insulate himself from getting fired—If he is terminated, he could claim it was retaliation.

Another example: People seem ever more likely to take offense at being criticized. A poor employee evaluation is as likely to yield a defensive reaction as an introspective one. Perhaps we’re taking too far our having been sensitized to the importance of praising and of building people’s self-esteem.

People also seem more easily offended by an ideological deviation from the orthodoxy. Ironic in that we’re taught to celebrate diversity, people seem to be ever more intolerant of ideological diversity. Today, in most educated circles, there’s little risk of offending anyone by calling for redistribution of resources from society’s haves to its have-nots: for example, more attention to closing the achievement gap, single-payer health care, more efforts to help the long-term unemployed, etc. You’re at far greater risk in advocating for something that defies the intelligentsia’s current foundational belief, which is redistribution, for example, calling for smaller government and lower taxes, let alone ending affirmative action efforts such  as redistributing funds from school programs for the gifted to programs for the lowest-achievers. At a party recently, someone decried the accelerating federal disparate impact lawsuits, which pressure school districts to suspend students in proportion to racial balance and for employers to treat felon and non-felon job applicants equally. She opined that was unfair to employers, to law-abiding job applicants, and to children who happened to be of the wrong race. A guy immediately ridiculed her as insensitive to “privilege,” whereupon everyone remained silent. The celebration of diversity now seems to stop as soon as one veers right of center. It’s a bit ironic that the Left continues to focus on the evils of the McCarthyite censorship of 70 years ago, yet today firmly wields the censorship scythe when it comes to judging, let alone publishing thought counter to the lemmings. It’s like the citizenry in Orwell’s Animal Farm who mindlessly mouthed: “Four legs good, two legs bad” until the Powers deemed, “Four legs good, two legs better.”

Also ironic, we seem less likely to be offended by things that are unarguably offensive. For example, we now accept as normal that people don’t respond to our emails or phone messages, even if it’s a job seeker who worked hard on an application. We don’t get offended at drug-company commercials designed to scare us into buying drugs that, if they were so good, would require only a journal article read by physicians, not millions of dollars of advertising to the easily duped general public, the cost of which get added to what we pay for medicine. Not to mention, no one wants our TV recreation interrupted by long lists of side-effects, from diarrhea to death.

In sum, we’re getting offended by the wrong things. Especially important, society would be better if we appreciated rather than got offended by criticism and if we were more offended  that we’re made to feel scared to present a viewpoint that doesn’t comport with political correctness. Not only does that stifle our freedom of expression, the decline in the free market of ideas encourages societal stasis rather than progress. 

As I end every radio show: “We find comfort among those who agree with us; growth among those who don’t.”

Marty Nemko's bio is in Wikipedia.

In college I took a class called New Queer Cinema, taught by the filmmaker Maureen Bradley. We watched Todd Haynes films and a musical about AIDS and other gay dramas where someone dies or goes to jail or in some such way meets a tragic fate. We learned about the obscurity of queer cinema, and the prominence of tragic ends in whatever exists of a queer filmography. The course focused on films from the early nineties. We discussed the onset of AIDS and its effect of increasing visibility in queer cinema.

If you Google “new queer cinema,” you’ll find this on Wikipedia:

New Queer Cinema is a term first coined by the academic B. Ruby Rich in Sight & Sound magazine in 1992 to define and describe a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s. The term developed from use of the word queer in academic writing in the 1980s and 1990s as an inclusive way of describing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender identity and experience, and also defining a form of sexuality that was fluid and subversive of traditional understandings of sexuality. Since 1992, the phenomenon has also been described by various other academics and has been used to describe several other films released since the 1990s. Films of the New Queer Cinema movement typically share certain themes, such as the rejection of heteronormativity and the lives of LGBT protagonists living on the fringe of society.

In the textbook (New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader), there’s an essay by Monica B. Pearl called “AIDS and New Queer Cinema.” It’s about the historical moment when enough queer artists were making work – and enough of this work was reaching an audience – for the phenomenon to be considered a movement, and for the term new queer cinema to be coined. This moment coincides with the AIDS crisis, which really brought homosexuality to the forefront. All it takes is people dying.

I remember a classroom discussion when the pride parade came up – a rare moment of levity in the midst of otherwise grim and brutal subject matter. A student raised his hand and asked, “why do gays get a whole day dedicated to them every year?” (I’m reminded of this on national coming out day because now we have not one, but two days dedicated to our sexual identities, and surely this is excessive, as anything queer is typically considered to be.) The professor’s response to this question cut to the heart of why the question is so deeply hostile, and why this student asking the question reveals a staggering lack of awareness of himself as well as entire demographics of people. Bradley responded effortlessly, the way we often wish we had responded to such a phobic situation, in retrospect. (Perhaps she had come across this question before.) “Every other day of the year is straight day,” she said. The fact of needing to set a day (or two!) aside for the recognition of an entire population of people sort of answers the question, too, doesn’t it?

Today, in the spirit national coming out day, I would like to propose that every day is also coming out day! For example, in order for new queer cinema simply to exist, filmmakers had to come out. In the germinal queer film Go Fish, there’s this beautifully overwrought scene where Guinevere Turner’s character observes that no matter how queer she is or how many women she’s been with or how much she dresses like “hip hop Barbie,” she will nonetheless be expected to come out to colleagues and new acquaintances and distant relatives and complete strangers for the rest of eternity.

In college, I wrote an essay mourning the final season of The L Word because it was the first and only show of its kind – a series written by, for, and about lesbians. You know, the FUBU ideology. The creative writing professor opened the workshop discussion of my piece by zeroing in on my use of the word heteronormative, which he matter-of-factly stated was not a word. “You invented it,” he said with alarming confidence. “And it’s heterophobic.”

It took setting up a meeting with the head of the creative writing department, for me to begin to unravel this problematic treatment of my piece. When I met with the department head, I brought along a copy of an essay by a professor who taught in the gender studies department of the very university I was attending. The essay discussed the concept, and the coining, of heteronormativity. The department head graciously pulled me out of this workshop and transferred me into her own. I was lucky for her support and her readiness to act on my behalf. I have always felt a deep gratitude. She also instructed my professor to read the academic article about heteronormativity, which perhaps he did, perhaps not.

Writing the essay about The L Word required me to be gay, and to know it, and to feel comfortable in asserting this identity. It required me knowing enough about homophobia to feel alarmed by my professor’s treatment of this identity, not only my own but its depiction in the public sphere. It required a sense of validity that’s hard to come by for any young woman, let alone a queer one in the infant stages of finding her voice, who is being erroneously called out in a classroom where she is the only self-identified queer, and accused of making up a word, and of being “heterophobic,” which to my knowledge has no history whatsoever, insofar as being a word. It also required me rising to the undue occasion of treating a simple class assignment like a political (and personal!) crusade in order for my work to one day receive the same, fair treatment as any other essay in an undergraduate workshop would, all while avoiding being accused of fabricating words. The professor also used the word agenda a lot during my critique. To his mind, my writing an essay about The L Word could only be done if I had an agenda against heterosexuality.

In summary, for the privilege of the opportunity to write about something relevant to me, I was required to come out, and to fight some vague fight that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with a professor’s own internalization of the gay plight. I had to fight for all lesbians, I felt. The class discussion that ensued after that hearty introduction, was one where students and professor joined together to name other gay television series. The list was exhaustive but the class as a whole seemed satisfied, either with it or with themslves for coming up with the list. The one show I remembering, because it came up repeatedly, was Will & Grace. I’ve never watched the show, but to my knowledge it features no lesbian characters.

If I hadn’t been comfortable enough to write about The L Word – comfortable enough to out myself as a lesbian because to write about anything queer necessarily implies an agenda, and an oppositional one at that – I likely wouldn’t have written this piece to begin with, on account of wanting to avoid having to come out.

Before going off to college, I bartended at a fancy restaurant in the theatre district. The chef and the restaurant manager met my girlfriend one night when she came to pick me up after a shift that ended at 4am. The following night, the chef and the manager called me into the kitchen. The manager asked, who is the man in the relationship? When I deflected the question, the chef asked me to describe how lesbians have sex – trying, I suppose, to bring the conversation back to who the man was. When their questions got nowhere, they took turns offering themselves up as thirds in a potential future threesome, and asking if they could watch my girlfriend and I having sex. I was twenty. The chef and manager were in their fifties and seventies, respectively. I didn’t want the job, but I needed to save money for college. I never asked the chef or the manager what their wives liked in bed, or offered to watch them have sex.

In order to get through a day at work or at school, as a young queer, I felt I had no choice but to make public, as well as inadvertently politicize, my sexual identity. The alternative would have been to hide it. It takes a special kind of awareness to live in the world as a queer person. It takes great strength to have one’s sexual identity invested with so much meaning by strangers. It takes surviving a special kind of hell, to have to come out and then watch your colleague or your new friend or a complete stranger process your sexual identity, and whatever notions they’ve internalized about it, and to know this will happen over and over again for the rest of your life.

I had a doctor’s appointment on campus once. I went for a physical. The doctor asked if I took birth control. I told him no. He perked up.

“Well you won’t be needing a papsmear, if you’re not sexually active,” he said as if delivering wonderful news.

“I have sex with women,” I said bleakly.

“Oh,” he said, then laughed nervously. “That’s okay, that’s just fine, that’s alright,” he said. He started to fidget. “It’s alright. There’s nothing wrong with that!”

“I know,” I said.

He proceeded to inform me with astounding confidence that lesbians didn’t need pap screenings nearly as frequently as heterosexual women, because of penetration. I don’t know what, exactly, about penetration. Because of penetration. Anywa, his medical opinion was rooted entirely in assumptions and misinterpretations about my sexuality. If I had wanted the papsmear, I would not only have had to come out, and then watch him manage his own awkwardness, but I would also have had to trust my own suspicions that the information he was giving me (amidst his display of discomfort and his reassurance that there was nothing wrong with my gayness) was inaccurate. It would have taken more conviction, and quicker reflexes, for me to ask if fisting counted as penetration.

Instead I booked a physical with a female doctor. She asked if I was sexually active. I told her yes, and I told her with women, and she gave me a papsmear. I had read about the higher rate of undiagnosed cervical cancer among lesbians. Lesbians must be predisposed. Is this a new, woman-centric version of the AIDS crisis? Will we be famous? Lesbians must be predisposed to cervical cancer. Surely it has nothing to do with the violently negligent misinformation that continues to kill – kill! – innumerable lesbians and queers.

All it takes for queers to access basic experiences like an unbiased workshop, or a papsmear, too often necessitates a series of invasive, unwanted interactions having to do with strangers’ feelings about someone else’s sexual identity. And it’s important to come out, yes – is absolutely is. It’s important because in a world where queers live on the fringe and continue to struggle with violence and invisibility, a person needs to embrace their sexual identity in order to access basic experiences like an unbiased workshop, or a papsmear. But do you know how hard it is for any person to grapple their own sexuality? And then, if it’s non-normative, to wear it as a badge in order to move through the world in a way that befits their marginal experience in the wake of all this heternormativity?

On national coming out day, I would like to take this opportunity and honor the tireless strength and conviction required to move through this life despite endlessly coming up against the redundant yet always freshly-piercing hatred, hostility, misinformation, ignorance, prejudice, and violence that make possible the relentless, dreadful experience of having to watch a stranger reckon with your own sexual identity over and over.

Coming out often strikes me as a service queers provide to the – forgive me – heteronormative world. In this spirit, I must say that the uncomfortable moment where I watch a stranger reckon with my sexuality is a moment I’m not compelled to celebrate. Most often, bringing up my sexual identity seems entirely off-base, really, and I recognize this as a privileged sentiment; one made possible by the countless queers who came (and perhaps came out) before me. Whether by political endeavor or the mere fact of being alive, these are the people who have made the world a less hostile place for me. I feel lukewarm vis-à-vis national coming out day, but if I must celebrate, then I would like to thank all the dead queers who came out before me, and those of us alive right now, who are still doing it. Here’s to a future where queers might increasingly live their lives with the grace and privacy afforded other humans already. Here’s to not having to come out for the rest of eternity.

Next week in Queer Studies: if lesbians love women so much, why do they dress like men?

Bob’s boss drives him crazy. She never just asks for what she wants. She always lectures and moralizes. To her every little thing is a moral issue about which she’s the world’s authority. She once lectured him for five minutes on the importance of keeping the waste cans under desks--tedious, ponderous and patronizing for him to sit through, though for her apparently satisfying.

Bob’s wife Lucy teaches 6^th grade and she too is lectured all day on worldly virtue by her students who cry, “that’s not fair!” and “you’re mean” at every disappointment.

During recess she breaks up bullying when she sees it, but bullying is in the air always, kids attacking each other’s character directly and indirectly, playing up their indignations and sensitivities for effect, kids always on the edge of accusing or being accused of being stupid or mean, little people all on moral crusades of their own design, translating their momentary preferences into righteous indignation.

Bob and Lucy are so glad to get home at the end of the day, relieved that they finally figured how to keep such moralizing out of it in the house, such a relief that for a few hours every day their character isn’t scrutinized, picked at and picked on, their home finally a moralizing-free zone.

It wasn’t always such a haven. They had both been indoctrinated in our culture’s lofty-sounding standard that one shouldn’t be judgmental. But by temperament they have strong preferences, opinions often at odds with each other’s, so it was hard not to judge. They found themselves alternating between biting their tongues, bickering and scolding each other for being judgmental.

Eventually they figured out that judgment is actually fine, natural and inevitable. It’s just not OK to play judge, Supreme Court justice or Ayatolla, the way Bob’s boss or Lucy’s students do. Be discerning but subjectively. Don’t slip into implying that you’re the last word on what’s right in the world.

Little by little they’ve learned how to restrain their natural tendency to play judge for rhetorical effect. They’ve learned how to keep from translating “I don’t like that” into “That’s shameful,” or translate “I want this” into “Morality demands that you give me this.”

They own their preferences as their own, letting their preferences stand on their own two feet rather than claiming that they’ve got the backing of almighty God, virtue or every right thinking human in the world. They don’t gang up on each other by citing imaginary allies, “The good guys, who I’m sure would agree with me...”

At first, it was hard to retreat to simple statement of preference. They both feared that preferences alone would never stand a chance against such moralizing’s rhetorically big guns.

Wouldn’t Bob simply lose debates if for example, he said “I’d just prefer to stay home and putter tonight,” and Lucy sighed an exasperated, “It’s Saturday night and you want to be slothful and anti-social?” as though his preference was a reflection of bad character?

So they were surprised when retreating to simple statements of preference, they actually got what they wanted more efficiently and effectively. It turned out that both were much happier accommodating each other when it didn’t feel like surrender to save moral face. 

They even came up with a silly code that labeled their simple requests:  “ARSI, could you not call me hon?” ARSI meaning A Request Sans Indignation.

Bob and Lucy are both fundamentally moral people. They know that morality has its place. They discuss the great moral issues of the day. They wonder about the difference between arguing for morality and moralizing.

But they’ve both figured out that morality is not some exacting standard as its often promoted by religious and political ideologues as though there’s some tight little path of virtue that we all must walk.

The world is too complicated for that kind of formula, and even if there is such a formula, a recipe for world welfare, none of us can claim to have it and then impose it on others. Claiming we have the formula is usually a cover for “give me what I want” the kind of indulgence 6ths graders employ at recess but that we should all grow out of by adulthood.

Dear Dr. G,

I just got off skype with my dad, where he told me that my mum has started crying because I told her that I don’t want to come back home for the summer holidays because it’s boring back home without to do for 3 months, when I could stay back in Australia and do summer school while working part time, so I could save up some money for my personal expenses next year.

I am currently going to college in Australia, home is Sri-Lanka and I’m the only child.

The thing about my mother is that she was the typical pushy mum. My parents are great and I love them to death but I have never had this mother-daughter connection with my mum. Though with my dad we are best of friends. When I hear my friends talk about how they are best friends with their mothers and how they can tell them absolutely anything and I think to myself I can never tell my mother anything, or wow I wished my mum was like that.

My mother was always the one who picked me up from school and she was the one who took me for my swimming classes for almost 12-13 years.(I’ve been a swimmer since I was 4) The thing with most mothers who my mum was friends with was that they loved to compare and brag about their children. I remember every single day on the ride home from swimming she would constantly talk about how everyone else was better than me, and how slow I am and that she can’t believe that even after all the hard work she has put in that I can’t perform better

Let me talk about school:

I was a pretty good student in school, I was always on the top 3 until grade 6. I enjoyed going to school.I had a good reputation in school and I had a lot of friends. I was also involved in a lot of sports. The thing with my first school was that everyone back stabbed each other. There were kids in class who would go and narrate everything they did in school to their mothers and I WAS NOT THAT KID. Every time my parents asked me how was school I’ll be like ”it was good” and that was it. I told them if anything important happened and nothing else. I didn’t think it was necessary that I should tell my parents every single thing that happened in school. I was the person who left my problems in school, in school the moment I went through the gates, I never carried it home. Throughout the entire 12 years of going to my first school, there was never a single day that she would not compare me to someone else. She took great pride in talking about how other kids were better than me, never have I heard my mum talk good about me. At first when I told her the marks I got for my exams, the first thing she would ask is how much did my friends get or whose the highest in the class. This was always what happened. So over time I got used to writing down the marks of my friends for each subject and telling their marks along with mine so that it would help my mum to compare.

My mother would scold me, shout at me, call me a bitch along with several other words whenever I get bad marks. I had never got into trouble at school so she never had the chance to scold me for that. It was always either about the grades or my swimming. In school they used to give us certificates if we got marks above 70 and one day I remember my mother smacking me in the head inside school in front of everyone because this boy got more certificates than I did. I remember trying very hard not to cry in front of my friends, I was around 10/11. Another time during parent teacher meeting, I remember my dancing teacher in grade 6 telling my mum that I was not good in dancing and I was just fooling around. (The truth was we had a break in the dance class and I was playing paper football with the boys and one paper ball went and hit the teacher) my mother pinched my hand after the teacher said that, my skin came off and I was bleeding. I still have the scar. My parents used to hit me when I was a kid, whenever I got low marks my father would take me to his office room and cane me. This happened from Grade 1 to Grade 6 that was around 5-11/12 years.At that time I thought they were doing this to correct me and maybe that was what they were doing. But even as a little girl I knew that whenever I have kids I would never cane them. I don’t know whether to think if this was abuse. I’m still not sure.

Also my dad would hit me with his belt. That was sometimes not all the time. One day I got a very bad beating, I remember my hands were red from the cane marks. That was somewhere in Grade 6 because after that I lost hope, I lost my interest in trying to work harder to become the perfect child for my parents. I just couldn’t do it anymore. My grades dropped and I vented out all my frustration doing swimming. I spent a lot of time swimming that at the end of the day I was too tired to even have dinner. One day after school my parent’s picked me up and my dad apologized to me, he said he was sorry and that he would never hit me. True to his word, till this day he hasn’t done anything to hurt me. But I remember thinking whether my mum will ever apologize. She never did.

My mother never trusted me, she never believed anything I say. She will always believe what someone else's mother would say over mine. ALL THE TIME.

When I was getting ready for my O/Levels my mum told me to quit swimming and focus on studies which I did. But till this day she tells me how they have spend a lot of money for my swimming and how I just gave it up. I don’t want to argue with them anymore because I just don’t have the energy in me so I keep my mouth shut. I used to get a lot of awards both for academics and sports. I have an entire cupboard full of trophies and certificates. I have another frame full of medals hanged on the wall in my room at home. But the sad part is no matter what I win my mother has never congratulated me. Not even once. She has never smiled at me and given me a hug when I got something. She has never done it. My dad on the other hand would be over the moon when I got something. I remember going for the school prize giving where I got a prize for physics and the only thing my mother told me was ”now that you got the prize, start focusing on swimming” I didn’t want the damn prize it’s not something I asked them to give me, I worked hard to get it. A little ’good job’ would have made my day. But I didn’t ponder on it much, I moved past it.

To do my A/Levels I changed schools, and during the first few weeks my mother HATED ME. She would always be like ”now I have no friends because of you, no one talks to me anymore” Well to be honest I lost all my friends as well, I was all alone in my new school the first few weeks until I started making friends. But I could never tell that to her right, for almost all my life I have never told my mother any of my problems. Whenever I could feel like I can trust her and tell her something, she WOULD ALWAYS, ALWAYS use it against me. I learned that lesson a few times before I stopped telling her anything. Never have I hated her, I was just hurt and I would always lock myself in the bathroom and cry.

I used to have a ”crush” on this boy in school and my parents found out and all hell broke loose that day. It was just a ”crush” that boy didn’t even know it, just a crush. I mean if I was going out and they caught me kissing him I would have understood but this was just a crush. My parents flat out told me that I was to ”suppress all my biological needs till I was 20” That was exactly what they told me. My dad even was like ”You want to get married, okay why don’t I just get you married, then we can be done with everything” Mind you this was just a crush. I was around 13-14 when this happened and I was going through the teenage,adolescent phase. I feared talking to boys or my friend in general in front of my parents. I got a phone for the first time when I went to Malaysia for uni. I had given all my friends my home number so that they could call but I told them never to call me because I was scared of my parents. I hide my Facebook account for years. I got it in Grade 8. Somehow my parents found out and they forced me to give my password literally forced me to but I never did. I have never gone to a friend’s birthday because I was too scared to ask my parents. I have never gone to movies with my friends, or to the mall or whatever kids in school do with my friends.

I also remember this incident to date, I was in grade 5 or 6 (around 8-9 years maybe) I was small and my mum was telling how my friends mother didn’t want her to go for swimming in the morning because the coaches were all male. And my mother told this to my face, she was like ”not like you, she[friends name] is pretty” That night I cried myself to sleep. Another time after I got my O/Level results, we had a prize giving and I got 4 prizes for the 4A’s I received. My parent’s yelled at me the entire ride home, they told me that I wasn’t worth the time and money they spent on me, they were furious my dad couldn’t even drive the car properly because he was that mad. They were telling me how they were so embarrassed to see me walk on stage to get my awards and my mother was like she didn’t even clap for me. This was because a really good friend of mine got 6A’s and 3B’s while I got 4A’s and 4B’s. I didn’t say anything to them, I never say anything to them. I just lock my self in the bathroom and cry while the shower is running so they don’t hear me.

Once school was over, I applied for universities abroad and I had a 6 months break before going to college.

Those six months was the worst days of my entire life. This was between June 2012-Dec 2013.I left to uni in Feb 2014. I absolutely hated being at home with my mother, I would stay upstairs in my room while she was down. At home I was not allowed to close my doors until it was bedtime. Staying at home was hell to me, I was literally pulling my hair out. I couldn’t go out anywhere, I had no one to talk to. Just me and myself. So I did what every kid would do, I was on the computer 24/7. My computer was kept in the living room cause after the ”crush” incident my parents never trusted me. I didn’t do much I was just on Facebook and checking my mail, that’s all I did. During those months the internet bill would be very high and my dad would scream at me. But that didn’t stop me from using it, I mean what else am I supposed to do. There’s only so many times I can stare at my toes. I felt like an outsider in my own house. Even at night when my dad would be home from work,I would be upstairs while they were down. I also used to watch the show ”Los Vegas” on cable tv. And every time my mum passed the TV she would scold me for what I am watching. I mean it’s a show not porn, Jesus. One day she flat out asked me if I wanted to be a prostitute. After a while I stopped watching TV. I would come down for dinner then I would go back up, I just didn’t know how I was supposed to be around my parents. Because I have never spent so much time with them, I was always in school or at swimming. I was literally home to just sleep and eat during school days. So this was all so new to me and I also just didn’t want to disappoint them, because I had come to realize that I was a failure and everything that I did was just not enough, I knew I could and can never please them, they will never be satisfied. My mother always used be like ”you and [my friend] have the same brain why can’t you get high marks like her”. I would never talk back and be like we are not the same.

This was where it all changed:

One night in December my dad called me from downstairs and was like ”What are you doing on the Internet?” and I was like nothing. He them stormed upstairs and disconnected the Internet. The next day was the worst day ever, I’ll remember it till the day I die. We would normally go to the park to walk in the morning. From the minute we left to the park my mother was yelling at me, I thought she would stop when we came to the park but she didn’t she kept on screaming at me. Everyone in the park was staring at me. I have never seen my mother look so angry in my entire life I was 17 at that time. I couldn’t take it anymore so I ran away from her, one the way home she was screaming at me. She brought up every single mistake I had done in my entire life and she basically tore me apart. I still don’t know what made her so mad but she said somethings that she could never take back. I had thought of dying before this incident but that day was the last straw. I just couldn’t take it anymore so after we went home, I waited till my parents left to go shopping and I wrote a letter. I wrote it to my parents, I told them how sorry I was that I was such a failure, and how I’m sorry that I couldn’t get a scholarship to go to college and that how I couldn’t be smart like my friends. My mum had left her phone at home and gone so I took her phone and messaged my best friend, I asked her if I was a good friend and she was like ”yeah” and I told her to tell that to my mother if anything happens to me. I then went to the bathroom with the note in my hand and I was going to drink the bleach bottle which was there. At that moment my friend called me shouting telling me not to do anything stupid. She was going to come to my place that moment. I told her everything and she was like I’m going to talk to your mother but I told her ’no’ because I didn’t want my parents to hate me anymore. I didn’t go through with my plan because my friend’s call calmed me down. From that moment I didn’t talk to my mother, not a single word. I only talked when my dad talked to me and that was just for the question. Nothing more. It continued for days I did not speak a single word to my mother, and my parents picked up something was wrong, my mum left me at home and went, we never spoke. Around the 2nd day my dad phoned me from work and he was told me that my mum has come to his office crying telling that I am not talking to her, he told me to resolve whatever issue I had with her. I hanged up on him. I felt bad for my dad because he was caught in the middle, my mum never talked to me for starters and I clearly didn’t talk to her as well. The first time I spoke to her was on the 31st of December, I did that because it was a new year, I was going to college and I wanted to turn a new leaf. I didn’t want to start a new year angry and hurt. So I spoke to her, just a few words here and there.

I spent my last 1 1/2 years studying in Malaysia before coming to Australia. My parents came with me to Malaysia to drop me off. They dropped me at uni residence before going to the airport. My dad stayed at the gate after I said bye, but my mum walked behind me with her hands on my shoulders. She was crying but I didn’t look back I just walked away. During the last year my dad would sometimes tell me that they miss me and my mum would be crying, but I do not feel any emotion towards her. If my dad was upset I would start crying but with my mother nothing, like I don’t feel anything towards her.

When I went home in June leaving Malaysia for the last time before coming to Aussie, I was standing with my mum at the arrival lounge while my dad bought the car and my mum was like ’she doesn’t know what she will do when I go to Australia because it’s almost a 13 hour flight from Sri-Lanka, 5 1/2 hours ahead in time.She was like I’ll die if you go. I just smiled at her, because to be honest I was waiting to come here.

Now that I am here, she is constantly calling me on viber or on skype. Sometimes I get annoyed because I have work to do and I really don’t see the need to skype with her the minute I wake up especially since I skype with my parents before going to sleep. I don’t know whether I should believe her when she says she misses me. I think I forgot to mention but I get bullied at home from my mother and my cousins, they say I am too fat. I’m 18 years old, my height is 5’4, and I weight 60kgs. I mean I would like to come to like 58 or 57kgs. But they call me a hippo, my mum takes away my food plate while I’m eating, she joins my cousin’s when they call me fat. That is what really hurts me this is my family you know, I have a lot of pain inside me, I’ve kept it with me all my life, my parents have hurt me a lot but never have I done anything that would bring disrespect to them. I am not the smartest person in the world, but I still pass my exams, I got into one of the best universities in the world, I have completed almost 2 years of my 3 year course. I have never smoked or done drugs. I have never done even a fraction of the things my friends have done and I just don’t understand why my mum hates me so much. Her biggest issue at the moment is how I am fat. I hate it when she joins my cousins in making fun of me, like that really hurts me because I’m a person with feelings I have been through a lot with no one to hold my hand, I am the only person there for myself and I feel so lonely when they are all sitting around me and making fun of me and commenting on me as if I can’t hear.

So when my mum calls and cries telling she misses me I get very confused and angry because we have no connection whatsoever, I can’t even bring my self to tell her that I have my periods. A few days ago she asked me if I was turning 20 on my birthday, I’m not turning 20, I’m turning 19. This is the same women who tells me she misses me. Like it doesn’t add up to me. I am so confused I don’t know what to think or feel, I feel very sad, and I cry a lot because she made me almost kill myself because of her I haven’t been able to look myself in the mirror for a very long time. I have managed to create a wall around me. I am a genuinely happy person, I have a lot of friends and I LOVEEE spending time with them. No one knows this side of me because I hide it. I don’t want to go back to those dark days, and something that helped me was One Direction, I listened to their songs during those 6 months. They were the only thing that brought happiness to my life that time.

Lately I have been feeling down, I was crying day before yesterday as well, which is why I am writing this because I need to get it off my chest. I don’t know if I need help. I don’t hate my mother I just wished I understood what she really feel towards me, because her crying and telling she misses me now is confusing me a lot. Because I was waiting for her to come talk to me for a really long time, just have a mother-daughter talk, or a mother-daughter day but she never did so her now acting like this makes me want to know if she has another motive behind her.

Please help me Dr G, I’m going crazy over here, I am also really sorry for rambling but above is my entire life story of the relationship with my mother.

Thank you spending your time to read this.

Love,

A Very Baffled Young Woman

Dear Sweet Woman,

I am more than delighted that you have reached out to me. You must be aware that you have indeed endured physical and verbal abuse from both of your parents for several years. You describe being humiliated,shamed, bullied and harmed badly by both of your parents. I understand completely why you got depressed and even suicidal at one point.

You describe having an easier relationship with your father. I am happy about that. Your mother may have some good qualities but you must understand that her behavior toward you is unacceptable. In addition, her behavior indicates that she is a very angry and unhappy woman. It is unlikely that any child would ever meet her expectations. My guess is that your mother has little else going on in her life than her family.

Of course, you are confused by your mother's erratic behavior. She is and has been displaying erratic and unstable behavior for many years. Yes, she may miss you but that does not mean that you should go home for the summer and be further humiliated and hurt. It is not your job to please your mother. I understand wanting to be a good daughter but up until now your efforts have failed. I am so very, very sorry for that. I am even sorrier that no one protected you all these years other than your friend. Thank goodness for that friend.

I suggest that you stay where you are for the summer. I also suggest that you spend less time on skype with your parents.You are a young adult now and you have a right to some independence.

Since you are feeling sad I would very much like you to go to therapy to sort out your feelings and to work on your self-esteem and your reactions to your parents. I am very happy that you have made a good group of friends. Please write back to me and let me know how things go for you.

Dr. G.

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Yesterday, when I took a break from my work to walk along the glorious edge of the Pacific Ocean, I almost got into a fight. Two women walking behind me on the beach were discussing single people. One of them said, "Well, they don't have anyone to care about but themselves." I thought about punching her out. Instead, I decided to write this post. I hope it gets circulated so widely that it ends up in her inbox.

Here are 8 ways in which single people are more connected, caring, and generous than married people are, and 2 more ways in which they are defying stereotypes and doing just as well:

1. When other people need the kind of caretaking that can go on for months or even more, single people are there. A representative national sample of 9,000 British adults found that more single people than married ones had regularly looked after someone, for at least 3 months, who was sick, disabled, or elderly.
2. Single people are more engaged in the life of the towns and cities where they live than married people are. For example, they participate in more civic groups and public events, they take more art and music classes, and they are more involved in informal social activities.
3. Single people are more likely than married ones to do what it takes to keep siblings together.
4. Single people are more likely to support, visit, advise and contact their parents and siblings than married people are.
5. Single people are more likely to socialize with, encourage, and help their friends and neighbors than married people are.
6. Getting married changes people in ways that make them more insular. In a study that followed people for six years, those who got married had less contact with their parents and spent less time with their friends than they had when they were single. (This cannot be explained as a kid thing. The greater insularity was true of couples with kids as well as those without; it was also true of men and women, and of Whites, African-Americans, and Hispanics.)
7. Single men are more generous than married men. (This is from research in which only men were included.) When men marry, they become no more generous to their relatives, and they become less generous to their friends.
8. Single men contribute more to the workplace in ways that benefit more than just themselves. In the same research that included just men, those who got married participated less often in groups such as farm organizations, unions, or professional societies than they had when they were single.

Here are a few ways in which single people defy our stereotypes; we think they would do worse than married people in these ways, but they don't:

• Single people are just as concerned with guiding the next generation as married people are.
• There is no good evidence that getting married makes people less lonely. None. In fact, in some suggestive research, strikingly low rates of loneliness were found among people we expect, stereotypically, to be the loneliest – older women who have always been single.

Sociologist Naomi Gerstel, who has made some of the most significant myth-busting contributions to the study of single and married people's social ties, published an important article, "Rethinking families and community: The color, class, and centrality of extended family ties." In it, she explained what she means when she says that marriage is a greedy institution (short version: "…marriage reduces kinship, community, and even the vibrancy of public life"). She also made the case for why it matters that marriage is so greedy:

"Marriage clearly has troublesome implications for the community that are often overlooked. As the population ages, the greediness of marriage deprives more elderly parents – who, ironically, have often pressed their children to marry – of the help and support that they want and need. Marriage can also generate excessive burdens on those who are single, as they are expected to provide the care that their married siblings do not. Although marriage is greedy across race and class, because those with fewer economic resources are more likely to rely on extended kin, this is for them a particularly costly outcome. Thus, not only is the focus on marriage a narrow vision, but it may actually detract from the very resources – rooted outside the nuclear family and marriage – on which Americans depend."

[Notes: (1) As I write more on this topic, I will add links to the collection, "The Myth of the Isolated and Self-Centered Single Person." (2) For collections of writings debunking other myths about single people and the supposedly transformative power of getting married, click here. (3) From elsewhere, you may also be interested in, "Escape from loneliness: Is marriage the answer?" and "Caring about children and their future: Is it a parent thing?" (4) This isn't new but perhaps worth revisiting in the context of this blog post, "Is this the myth about singles that single people are most likely to believe?"]

Older and younger generations have always clashed about values. Typically, these clashes result from younger people being more liberal, and older people more conservative. This is somewhat ironic since older people were also quite liberal when they were young, and younger people will become more conservative when they grow old. So what explains age differences in conservatism, and why do people become more right wing, authoritarian, and rigid as they age? 

The first reason is personality. Indeed, a review of 92 scientific studies shows that intellectual curiosity tends to decline in old age, and that this decline explains age-related increases in conservatism. At any age, people differ in their typical levels of curiosity, and these differences have been attributed to the broader personality trait of Openness to Experience. Higher levels of Openness have been associated not only with aesthetic and cultural interests, but also with a general tendency to seek emotionally stimulating and adrenalizing activities (e.g., from scuba diving to bungee jumping; from drugs to unprotected sex). Furthermore, open people are also more likely to display counter-conformist attitudes, challenge the status quo and disrespect authority. Although these qualities make high Openness a potential threat to society, Openness is also the source of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as an intellectual antidote to totalitarianism, injustice and prejudice.

The second is judgment, in particular information-processing capacity. In most people (and I’m sorry to break the news) the speed of information-processing, a core ingredient of judgment and intelligence, peaks around the mid 20’s. To make matters worse, most people become considerably slower after their mid 40’s, with a substantial deceleration after their 60’s. The good news, however, is that slower does not necessarily mean dumber. In fact, older people are better able to rely on knowledge, experience and expertise, so they are not as affected by slower information-processing capacity. However, in order to retrieve knowledge more efficiently it is essential that they economize thinking, and seeing things in more categorical or “black-or-white” terms does make for more frugal and efficient thinking. In line, a review of 88 studies in 12 countries shows that older people are generally less tolerant of ambiguity, and have a higher need for closure and structure. This is often manifested by their stronger set of principles and rules, and a tendency to dismiss information that conflicts with their views. In addition, older people are also more likely to make categorical judgments about events, things, or people. This often involves acting in more prejudiced ways – to pre-judge means to judge before really judging – because in older ages preserving old knowledge is more important than acquiring new knowledge.

The third and final reason is familiarity. As we grow older, our experiences become more constrained and predictable. This is partly adaptive; order and structure enable us to navigate the world in autopilot, whereas change requires proactive adaptation, effort, and improvisation. In fact, at any point in life change is disruptive and taxing, but it is especially stressful when we are old. Thus, conservatism increases familiarity, which in turn increases conservatism. In line, research has shown that in older age conservatism is positively related to self-esteem. The implication is that remaining open minded when you are old may cause not only counterproductive uncertainty, but also insecurity and self-doubt.

Of course, all these are just generalizations and they do not apply to all individuals, young or old. To some extent, every individual is unique, and the developmental patterns of change and stability in personality and political orientation will never be identical for any two individuals. Interestingly, there is also compelling evidence for the idea that people become more exaggerated versions of themselves when they age. In that sense, people are just like wine: the good ones get better with age; the bad ones worse.

“Empowerment of and investment in girls are key in breaking the cycle of discrimination and violence and in promoting and protecting the full and effective enjoyment of their human rights”

-United Nations Resolution 66/170

October 11, 2014 is the third annual international Day of the Girl. The date was chosen by the United Nations in 2011 to bring attention to the rampant gender inequality in our world. Today, with the power of social media fanning the flames, we can take a moment to reflect on the challenges specific to girls. Some are true crises.

• Female infanticide. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls are missing in the world today because of female infanticide[1]. Does it matter how many millions of girls are missing because of female infanticide? If I told you one, single newborn girl was born only to have her mother cover her tiny mouth and nose with a wet cloth to snuff out this undesirable life, would that not be enough?

• Pay inequality. Women in the United States are earning 77% of what men are earning. To undervalue a woman in salary is to undervalue a woman as a whole. It is a short step from here to more damaging forms of misogyny.

• Violence against women. This comes in all forms – physical, emotional, or sexual. Very often the perpetrator is someone close to the woman, an intimate partner. Globally, nearly one third of women have experienced some form of violence from an intimate partner and as many as 38% of all murders of women are committed by an intimate partner. If that’s what an intimate partner will do, imagine the fear women have of total strangers?

• Female genital mutilation. The World Health Organization reports that over 125 million women living today have been subjected to female genital mutilation. The practice has been perpetuated to stymie the libido of women or prevent them from engaging in illicit sexual activities. There are no health benefits but the list of complications is tragic: hemorrhage, recurrent infections, cysts, childbirth complications, pain, the need for future/repeated surgeries to correct the damage done and even death. These young girls are stripped of the right to their bodies and to a physiologic sexual experience.

• Child “marriage”. Would you consider it marriage if you were handed to someone older and bigger at the age of ten or twelve? The term, as foul as it sounds, is a euphemism still. More honestly, it is the community sanctioned rape of a child. The staggering statistics don’t do the problem justice. Do you know a ten year old girl? Can you imagine her at the hands of an adult man? Child “brides” often suffer severe and sometimes fatal genital trauma as a result of unwanted penetration by their “husbands.” Underage mothers are vulnerable to physical and sexual violence, as well as complications of childbirth including obstetric fistulas and high maternal and infant morbidity and mortality rates.

• Human trafficking. Human trafficking has been reported in all 50 states of the US and affects all countries in the world. The sex trade industry preys on children and the vulnerable, coercing victims to sell their bodies by force or fraud. Wars and economic instability have opened markets for the trade to flourish and it now generates billions per year. In some areas, the fear of AIDS has driven customers to seek younger girls who are less likely to be infected.

• Rape. Sexual assault is an underreported crime because of the shame and stigma associated with it. The justice system often paints the victim as a provoker or deserving of the attack. We have heard statistics as frightening as one in five women in college are sexually assaulted. Rape can be a singular, devastating event or it can be a lifetime as in the case of women who are abducted until they become pregnant, at which time they are culturally cornered into marrying their abductor-rapists. Marital rape is sometimes not recognized, as if to say that a man has an undeniable right to a woman’s genitals if he is her husband. Rape happens to people of all ages and both genders but is predominantly a crime against girls and women.

• Honor killings. I cannot think of a more tragically ironic phrase. Imagine a young girl raped, then killed at the hands of her own “loved ones” because she had brought dishonor to the family. Or parents murdering their own daughter because they believed she was looking inappropriately at a teenage boy through her window. How can we teach these families how to honor their daughters instead of false pride? How can we teach these communities not to demonize girls?

The very knowledge of these crises can be debilitating or it can be galvanizing. As parents, it is our responsibility to ensure that our girls are aware of the challenges they will face and given tools to overcome them. Contrary to what some executives might say, women in the work force should advocate for themselves.

But what about the other crises? We cannot teach our daughters to defend themselves against female genital mutilation or honor killings when the perpetrators are their own families. This involves a broader challenge – first and foremost recognizing the existence of a crisis and changing the mentalities and social norms that precipitate them. For practices that are local and cultural, like honor killing, child marriage or female genital mutilation, the best mechanism for change is altering the community’s attitude toward the practice. Laws and decrees are not helpful if they are not accompanied by heartfelt, internal shifts in attitude.

We can all do something to improve the lives of the girls around us. Tell your daughter she can be a nurse or a doctor. Tell her she can play with dolls or with remote control cars. Tell her not to apologize for voicing her opinion. Tell her every day is the Day of the Girl.

Recently, actress Amanda Bynes reportedly wrote on Twitter that a microchip in her brain made her tweet very hurtful things about her father. http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2014/10/10/amanda-bynes-recants-sexual-assault-accusations-with-bizarre-tweet/17038661/  Of course, no one knows the truth of what might have led her to tweet either the earlier accusations, or the later incredible explanation. But, on that very same day, she was the number one Hot Search on Google.

Are Twitter and Google Virtual Tourism?

To understand this fascination, let’s consider a radical concept—that social media and search engines are the virtual-world’s equivalent of tour-guides and traveling. In a three-dimensional world, we hire guides to show us fascinating macabre, taking trips to see gravesites, places of inhumane behaviors, and the homes of tragedies. The tourism industry refers to this “dark tourism” or “thanatourism.” There is a place which studies dark tourism, headed by Dr. Philip Stone, who is the Director of the UK’s University of Central Lancashire’s Institute for Dark Tourism Research. What if we now travel into the lives of others, or the history of places, not just by driving or flying somewhere, but through experiencing details of someone or someplace through Facebook, Google searches or Twitter? Our browsers become the planes, trains and automobiles of our mind, taking us into places and people’s lives, like an always-available elevator in Being John Malkovich. We simply fire-up our iPads, laptops, or phones and visit the sad and tragic events of a place or person’s life.

Why the “Dark” Interest?

Dorina Buda and her co-authors published a thought-provoking article in the Annals of Tourism Research (2014) in which she argues that tourism includes the provoking of emotions. They argue that horrific events, including war-zones and locations of tragedies, bring forward the tourists feelings through empathy—and tie the visitors at a deep level to the place and its events.  If we take that notion a step further, and apply it “virtual” tourism, we can understand why you and I find unfortunate stories of others so captivating. We “tour” the virtual geography of the landscape celebrities’ lives, or watch with fascination the detailing of torrid affairs when the ID channel sensationalizes the misfortunes of ordinary people.

The virtual tours trigger feelings in us all. We feel sympathy for the unfortunate, righteous indignation for the exalted, or empathy for those like us. In the case of Amanda Bynes, we likely felt sympathy for someone lashing out at her father (even if there was no rational basis for her anger), or perhaps we also have felt so out of control that it’s as if a microchip was controlling us. No doubt many of the 200,000+ searches wanted to know what happened to the star of The Amanda Show and What I Like About You, someone we feel like we know and care about (even if we just know her characters).  But when we hear about her troubles, we likely relate with empathy and connect through our feelings to the “landscape” of her story in the virtual world. 

The heartbreak we imagine Ms. Bynes' family feels reminds us of the our own sadness experienced about one of our a loved-ones.  Her story becomes like a war-torn place, or a haunted hotel in New Orleans. Like our emotions from a ghost tour, we feel something from what we hear and read about Ms. Bynes, and through those feelings we connect…..even if in the virtual world. 

Being John Malkovitch http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120601/

Institute for Dark Tourism Research http://dark-tourism.org.uk

Buda’s article on Dark Tourism http://www.academia.edu/6723713/Feeling_and_tourism_studies

Hot Trends on Google http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends

Amanda Bynes story http://www.people.com/article/amanda-bynes-breakdown-family-heartbreak

The past three decades have witnessed an explosion of self-help books and programs aimed at curing everything from motivation to cancer. The Secret is a prominent example. Currently, the mindfulness phenomenon has entered mainstream, and now is entering the boardrooms and employee staffrooms of business. Is mindfulness just another self-help flavor of the month? Now that mindfulness has become popular, it predictably has drawn its critics.

The Secret is a best-selling self-help book written by Rhonda Byrne. The book is influenced by Wallace Wattles’ 1910 book The Science of Getting Rich and is based on the “law of attraction” which claims positive thinking can create life-changing results such as increased wealth, health, and happiness. The book has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 46 languages, and become the basis for many self-help guru training programs.

Byrne argues in the The Secret that the law of attraction is a natural law which determines the complete order of the universe and of our personal lives through the process of "like attracts like". The author claims that as we think and feel, a corresponding frequency is sent out into the universe that attracts back to us events and circumstances on that same frequency. For example, if you think angry thoughts and feel angry, it is claimed that you will attract back events and circumstances that cause you to feel more anger. Conversely, if you think and feel positively, you will attract back positive events and circumstances. Proponents of the law claim that desirable outcomes such as health, wealth, and happiness can be attracted simply by changing one's thoughts and feelings. For example, some people believe that using The Secret can cure cancer. As yet, there is no scientific evidence to support these assertions.

The Secret highlights gratitude and visualization as the two most powerful processes to help manifest one's desires. It asserts that being grateful both lifts your frequency higher and affirms that you believe you will receive your desire. Visualization is said to help focus the mind to send out the clearest message to the universe. Several techniques are given for the visualization process, as well as examples of people who claim to have used it successfully to manifest their dreams. The claims made by both the book and film have been highly controversial, and have been criticized by reviewers and readers in both traditional and web-based media. The book has also been heavily criticized by former believers and practitioners, with someclaiming that The Secret was conceived by the author and that the only people generating wealth and happiness from it are the author and the publishers.

Others assert The Secret offers false hope to those in true need of more conventional assistance in their lives. In businesses using the DVD for employee training or morale-building, some reacted to it as "a gimmick" and "disturbing" like "being indoctrinated into a cult.”

In a harshly critical 2010 review, The New York Timesstates: "“The Power” and “The Secret” are full of references to magnets, energy and quantum mechanics. Byrne’s onslaught of pseudoscientific jargon serves mostly to establish an “illusion of knowledge, as social scientists call our tendency to believe we understand something much better than we really do."

In 2009, Barbara Ehrenreich published Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America as a response to "positive thinking" books, like The Secret, that teach "if I just change my thoughts, I could have it all". She contends this is delusional or even dangerous because it avoids dealing with the real sources of personal problems. It encourages "victim-blaming,” “political complacency,” and a culture-wide "flight from realism" by suggesting failure is the result of not trying "hard enough" or believing "firmly enough in the inevitability of your success.” Those who were "disappointed, resentful, or downcast" were “victims” or “losers.” Ehrenreich advocates, like most psychotherapists "not negative thinking or despair" but "realism, checking out what’s really there and figuring out how to change it.”

Nowadays there’s not much buzz about The Secret anymore, having run it’s fad-like course. What about mindfulness?

Mindfulness meditation has gone mainstream after 35 years of media and research exposure in the Western world. Increasingly, management and trainers are turning to mindfulness to address issues such as employee engagement, stress reduction and positive relationships, providing a a low cost strategy to address employee productivity and well-being problems.

While we can trace mindfulness origins to Buddhism, the practice can be seen in many ancient cultures and spiritual traditions, going back more than 2,500 years. In this way, there is no parallel to self-help fads such as The Secret.

The Western scientific perspective on mindfulness dates back to 1979, when Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, an M.D. and molecular biologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center initiated mindfulness meditation as therapy for patients suffering from stress, anxiety, pain and illness with significant positive results

So what exactly is mindfulness?

Jon Kabat-Zinn describes mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment and nonjudgmentally.” Other definitions are: “bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis,” and  “it includes a quality of compassion, acceptance and loving-kindness.”

Subsequently we’ve witnessed a popular explosion of mindfulness, as seen in the hundreds of media stories. Coincidentally, there also has been an explosion in the interest and practice of yoga, which of course, is a form of meditation.

Mindfulness has entered a serious phase now, and we see it being practiced and preached in multiple disciplines including management and leadership and organizational development.

Mindfulness encourages the practitioner to see both themselves and the problems and issues they face in life in a different way, and those changes do change brain functioning, particularly its capacity to connect to experience in a different way. Mindfulness can improve the quality of attention, manage situations that cause stress instead of reacting in an automatic way. Mindfulness is a mindful state of consciousness , a turning inward to present felt experiences.

Care should be taken to not “oversell” mindfulness as a panacea, that promises a completely pleasant and immediately rewarding experience. Because mindfulness practice teaches you to approach and be with difficult emotions, thoughts and experiences instead of avoiding them, the experience can be difficult for some people. Mindfulness does not aim to get you high, to have your head in the clouds, or look for altered states of consciousness. It’s quite the opposite, it enables you to be even more conscious, and less unconscious in your habitual way of being.

Mindfulness focuses on being, or non-doing, and in that way, presents a stark contrast to our organizational work lives, and even our personal lives, which focus so much on doing.  It is now being practiced and advocated by celebrities, psychotherapists, physicians and high profile CEOs. Educational leaders, prison wardens and post-secondary institutions now have programs in mindfulness.

While popularity is not necessarily a good gauge of effectiveness, there is more than adequate research evidence to substantiate the efficacy of mindfulness:

• Since 2001, through the work of neuroscientist Richard Davidson and others, we’ve learned that left prefrontal cortex activity, associated with higher states of personal growth, meaning and purpose, measure at extraordinary high levels with people who practice mindful meditation regularly;
• Research shows mindfulness leads to significant changes in the brain: More cognitive flexibility, creativity and innovativeness, higher levels of well-being, better emotional regulation and more empathy, as reflected in increased levels of alpha and beta brain wave activity;
• The National Institute of Health is currently financing more than 50 studies testing the potential health benefits of mindfulness techniques;
• Researchers at the University of Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and MIT reported from their studies of mindfulness that mindfulness practitioners were far more able to “turn down the volume” on distracting information and focus their attention better than non-mindfulness practitioners;
• A study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry reported that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy delivered in a group format is as effective as antidepressant medication in treating depression;
• According to a study published in the journal, Psychoneuroendocrinology, the positive effects of mindfulness begin at the cellular level, altering levels of telomerase immune cells;
• A study by Kirk Brown at the University of Rochester found that people high on a mindfulness scale were more aware of their unconscious processes and had more cognitive control and greater ability to shape what they do and what they say, than people lower on the mindfulness scale.

Mindfulness has now entered the corporate world where it is integrated into educational and well being programs for executives and employees, and where its value has been recognized in terms of employee engagement, productivity , well-being an alternative to more costly health and wellness initiatives.

Most contemporary management and leadership literature is a predictive recasting of 19th and 20th century institutional thinking-multitasking, bigger, better, faster; planning, analysis and problem solving. Work on steroids.

While it is true that the effectiveness of leaders is determined by the results they achieve, those results are an outcome of the impact the leaders have on others. Behavior is driven by thinking and emotions. Thinking and emotions can be a result of mindfulness or mindlessness.

Neuroscience research clearly established that we act, decide and choose as a result of inner forces, often unconscious, and the brain’s reactive and protective mechanisms often rule us. Research also points to the existence of emotions being contagious and viral in the workplaces, often initiated by the emotional states of leaders.

Daniel Siegel, a neuroscientist and author of The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being, contends that a corporate culture of cognitive shortcuts results in oversimplication, curtailed curiosity, reliance on ingrained beliefs and the development of perceptional blind spots. He argues that mindfulness practices enable individuals to jettison judgment and develop more flexible feelings toward what before may have been mental events they tried to avoid, or towards which they had intense averse reactions.

The three foundational elements of mindfulness--objectivity, openness, and observation--create a tripod that stabilizes the mind’s attentional lens. This enables the mind to become conscious of the mind itself and thus become liberated from the common ways in which it is imprisoned by its own preoccupations. This is why, through mindfulness practice, we can transform self-created suffering into personal liberation. As we engage in mindful awareness practices, we have the potential to develop long-term personality traits from intentionally created mindful states. Research has suggested that these mindfulness traits include the capacity to suspend judgments, to act in awareness of our moment-to-moment experience, to achieve emotional equilibrium or equanimity, to describe our internal world with language.

Daniel Goleman, an acknowledged expert on emotional intelligence in leadership and organizations, writes in his book, Primal Leadership, “the first task of management has nothing to do with leading others; step one poses the challenge of knowing and managing oneself.” If leaders are constantly in the doing phase, without taking time for self-reflection and mindfulness, this knowing of oneself presents a serious challenge.

Richard Boyatzis, professor of organizational behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, and author of Resonant Leadership,argues that good leaders attain resonance with those around them through self awareness and relationship management, all clearly connected to mindfulness.

Our modern world has become unbalanced, with an excessive focus on doing and speed and multitasking, with little time for just "being" and reflection.  Mindfulness can restore that balance to leaders and workplaces.  Coaches who specialize in working with leaders in organizations, particularly senior leaders, can shape their coaching practice and methodologies to incorporate mindfulness successfully. The impact can be significant.

My particular interest is as an executive coach working with C-Suite executives, integrating mindfulness into an approach that focuses on self-awareness, self-management and behavior modification. While running a typical 6-10 week mindfulness training program can have significant benefits, I’m convinced that as a stand-alone development activity, it could lose its impact on both leaders and employees because it is not imbedded in the organizational culture. Care must be taken to not over-promote mindfulness as a universal panacea or management development flavor of the month.

Follow me on Twitter @raybwilliams

Stay tune for my forthcoming book: Eye of the Storm: How Mindful Leaders Create Mindful Workplaces.