Gaining Ground over Unfairness and Comparisons

Recently I've begun to realize a huge unfairness that abides in my workplace. There are a number of my fellow-employees who spend most of their time on their cell phones in private conversation or playing video games or filling out their Facebook profiles, while I spend my day doing my job, which takes an entire day to do. Admittedly, I was more tired than usual today, but I came home in tears. It's hard to take, and it all seems so unfair. It was all I could think about this whole evening.

I know better than to try to change other people. For my own sake I really needed to get a handle on this or else I'm going to end up quitting the best job I ever had at a time when good jobs are not so easy to come by.

In my previous life (a couple of years ago) I would have called a Christian Science Practitioner to talk it over with and perhaps pray with, but that was back when I didn't have confidence to think for myself. Now it's time to and come up with those much-needed successful solutions on my own. And thankfully there are a lot of intelligent people out there who have some wise things to say. And I found them, not by praying, but by Googling them. (Maybe Googling in the new prayer.) Actually, I Googled the question, "How do I deal with Unfairness?" and found several good articles that helped me immensely (I posted them below).

The first is a very brief interview about two regions of a brain and their activities when its owner reacts to unfairness in negative or positive ways. The second piece is about proactive ways of dealing with unfairness. Together, these articles gave me some good ideas to get out of this rut and get on with my life.

It occurs to me that my feelings of unfairness are directly related to my previous susceptibility to religion, belief in God, emotional need for prayer and calling on a Christian Science Practitioner for help often. My current problem with unfairness is that of weakness, lack of confidence and control over my life, same as I felt all those years of religiosity. What an eye-opener!

My tearful homecoming tonight was a remnant of years of feeling subservient to the whole religious life I used to lead and everyone I came into contact with. But now I think I get it. I need to bring more proactivity to my job and confidence in my own numerable abilities, same as I do to my life. I'm not waiting around for God to tell me what to do anymore. I am doing a great job at work and my boss knows it, so why am I comparing myself with my peers? I need to keep up my good work in spite of what my co-workers do; look for ways of doing even better; and don't feel sorry for myself. It's a waist of my precious work time and threatens my otherwise happy career. Now I just have to remember all this tomorrow, and act accordingly. Proactively.

Hope these is helpful to you.


How the Brain Helps Us Deal with Unfairness

2008-12-15

Narrator: If you were offered five dollars out of twenty-five dollars, would you find that unfair? This is Science Today. Matthew Lieberman, an associate professor of psychology at UCLA used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to see what goes on inside the brain when we interpret unfairness.

Lieberman: And we saw something very interesting here. On the one hand, we saw sometimes people showed greater activity in that insult region of the brain, the anterior insula, and when they did, they tended to reject those offers. But there were some folks who had a tendency to accept those unfair but desirable offers and when that happened, we instead saw a region of the prefrontal cortex that was more active and to the extent that it was, we saw that potential insult response diminish. So, what we see here is people engaging in some kind of self-control, it appears, so that they can take the long-term good, which is the money, and allow themselves to be OK with the psychological insult that they've received.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.

http://www.ucop.edu/sciencetoday/article/19177
Science Today - at the University of California


and


How Responsibility Transcends the "Life is Unfair" Attitude
2007-08-27

How do you deal with "unfair" situations? How do you feel if someone receives something better for doing less work than you? Is it right that you sometimes end up worse off than someone else even though you have better intentions?

When you say that something is unfair it implies that what happens to you is outside of your control. One of the main things I believe self-improvement is about is learning to take more responsibility and control for your life and destiny. The problem with claiming that something is unfair is that is has the complete opposite effect. Even if there are rare instances where you have absolutely no control over your current situation maintaining this attitude in the long term will cause you to relinquish control of your life.

So how can you deal with seemingly unfair situations?

You do everything in your power to try and get what you want. Let's say, for example, you apply for a job and someone who is less qualified than you gets it. This is a situation that you could potentially view as unfair. A good way to react to this situation is to continue to assume responsibility and try different means of getting the job. For example, you could continue to write to the employer expressing your belief of your suitability, you could offer unpaid internship to prove yourself, you could request feedback from interview and improve on the things where they thought you were weak, etc.

From the above example you can see that as long as you continue to assume responsibility there will always be more ways in which to act. Deciding that something is unfair is similar to accepting defeat, because you are saying to yourself that it is no longer up to you to get what you want.

I do, however, believe there are situations when it can be helpful to claim unfairness. It can be helpful to claim unfairness if it will cause you to get the result you want while remaining in line with your values. For example, if you are unfairly descriminated against in a job interview then I believe you can claim unfairness to the government, because this could help you get the job you want.

There are different ways in which the term unfair can be used. I want to be clear that I strongly believe it should be avoided when it becomes an attitude you have that causes you to give up control and responsibility. In my last example using unfairness is acceptable, because it is used to your advantage and you are still taking control of the situation.

Giving up the "life is unfair" attitude is another step you can take to accepting more responsibility for your life.

http://theresourcefulmind.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-responsibility-transcends-life-is.html
The Resourceful Mind

Holiday thoughts from Paula Poundstone

Thanksgiving Is Not Just A Dead Bird

by Paula Poundstone

NPR.org, November 26, 2008 · I don't need a holiday or a feast to feel grateful for my children, the sun, the moon, the roof over my head, music and laughter. But I'd like to take this time to take the path of thanks less traveled.

Taking the long view, I'm thankful that we're no longer hunter-gatherers, which has certainly freed up some time.

I am grateful that the election is over, and we don't have to watch another debate. I tend to agree with the last person who spoke anyway, and the candidates were running out of debate formats. They had already done one standing up, sitting down and some kind of free-range chicken type thing. Only the Sleep Number bed format was left.

I'm thankful for the 3-ounce Ziploc bag, so that I have somewhere to put my savings.

I'm thankful that my memory is good because my vision is going.

I'm thankful for Sarah Palin's vice presidential bid, which taught us that Alaska is not in a box off the coast of California.

I'm thankful that no known harm can come to me if gays marry.

I'm thankful that I never trash-talked the American Men's Freestyle Relay Team before racing them.

I'm thankful that I've never eaten a sub-prime steak.

I'm thankful that I went broke before the stock market went bad.

I'm thankful for the election of Barack Obama and even more thankful that I wasn't standing in front of any talk-show hosts during his acceptance speech.

I'm thankful that I'm old enough not to be judged by my ring tone.

I'm thankful that I live in the country that caused the world economic crisis, so that I don't have to be just a victim,

I'm thankful that I've never talked to Dr. Phil.

I'm thankful that I'm not tech-savvy, so that if I get elected president, I don't have to wean myself from any electronic gadgets. When I first heard that Obama had to give up his BlackBerry, I couldn't understand how a little fruit could compromise our national security.

I'm thankful that I don't have to housebreak my puppy in the Blue Room of the White House.

I am thankful that I am not just plain stupid enough to fly in my private jet to a meeting with a congressional committee to ask for taxpayer money for my company, which is not doing well at all, though I am certain that it is no fault of mine. And I am grateful beyond measure that I don't work for such a boob.

I am thankful that President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia after giving a lengthy inaugural speech, which inspired subsequent presidents to keep it tight.

I'm thankful that, when I dropped a tool bag, I wasn't in space.

And, yes, I am thankful for my children, and for the sun and the moon, but mostly, I am deeply grateful that we are not in charge of when or whether they shine, because if we were, surely they would need a bailout.

Paula Poundstone is a standup comic and writer. You can reach Paula at her Web site: www.paulapoundstone.com.

Letter to a friend

Dear Merideth,
Thanks for being in touch. I miss getting together for Association. Hope all is well with you.

Here's a little update on me. I pulled my membership from the Mother Church shortly after they dissolved our association. Mario and I have continued our discussions about everything under the sun as we always have. TMC's unjust action gave Mario (and now me) an opportunity to rethink the whole Christian Science issue, even to the existence of God.

I've come to the conclusion that the atheists are right. There is no God and never was. Starting back when everybody bowed down to gods of the old testament, the enlightened ones found they could reject gods when they got better informed. Now I find I can reject the present day one called God, on the same basis.

CS was such a family thing for me my whole life. During class I became aware that much of what I "knew" of CS was really a cultural thing based on the ways my family practiced CS. And much of what I "knew" was wrong. Thankfully Mario's CS teaching was good teaching based on CS premises. It cleared things up considerably. But like the old testament learners, eventually, better information makes us rethink what we "knew" to be the truth.

It just never occurred to me to question if the CS premises themselves were correct. Mrs. Eddy was very logical, but her basis of CS, her God premises were wrong. (Of course, if she'd discovered atheism instead of CS, in her day and in New England, she would have been burned as a witch and we'd never have heard of her, but that's beside the point.)

It occurs to me that the CS periodicals don't ask for enough scientific proof of healing (or even the nature of our physical problems to begin with.) CS is certainly head and shoulders above medicine previously available, that's for sure. But medicine has come a long way since the 1870's.

A sad state of affairs for Christian Scientists is that most CStists don't know themselves; they don't know what their conditions are (or even if they have conditions) and unwittingly make themselves worse off than necessary by not knowing themselves. Look at the little boy Mario's trial was all about. All of them prayed honestly and with every fiber of their beings, but had they actually known what the condition was in the early stages, he might have been saved by a little medical intervention. No one involved voiced a willingness to look into the medical possibilities at the time. Sadly they all learned that lesson too late.

It makes me wonder how many members of "spiritual healing" churches have died needlessly through the years due to their pious refusal for medical intervention.

There is nothing wrong with a little medical intervention from time to time. Look at the number of older CStists who have had hip replacements. And why shouldn't they? It prolongs their useful lives. Many are managing their diabetes with insulin too. And they should.

In other cases, much of what is "spiritually healed" might well get better on its own. I didn't get a professional opinion ever. What if what I thought was a stroke, wasn't? I know it was bad, but what was it? If it wasn't a stroke, I shouldn't have called it one. So how do I "know" I was healed of a stroke? And how do I know CS or God was what made it get better? Maybe it was just that in the act of praying, I stopped being fearful about it, relaxed, and the natural bodily recuperative abilities took over.

Would I have come to God conclusions if I had to discover these things for myself today? Don't think so. I started believing in God because my family had believed it and I thought they must be right. Now that I'm an adult, I think it will be better for me to do my own discovering and reading. Also, I couldn't help noticing that everyone in my family has now had surgeries of various kinds and is on medication of one sort or another. Every one of them! It makes no sense to staunchly believe what they taught me 50 plus years ago in light of new evidence.

I think we are too quick to accredit God with all the things that happen. We need to give ourselves more credit or blame for what goes on in our lives; take responsibility for ourselves, and get on with working on the fixes that are needed. Medical, emotional, psychological and moral.

The still small voice in our heads turns out to be our own. That's not such a bad thing. For me, that discovery has been quite liberating. I've stopped waiting endlessly for "God" to tell me what to do. I feel a little stronger now. More able to think things through and find good solutions for myself.

So glad to hear from you, Merideth. Keep in touch.

Love,
Susan

Just speculation

Question: “Sew, what did you mean when you said that you no longer "subscribe to your life-long belief in God"?

Sounds odd, doesn’t it? And it was a bigger surprise to me than it is to you. Here I was a life-long-, even 5th generation-Christian Scientist. Never tried to be anything else. Didn’t want to. Tried to be loving to the practitioners of all faiths, but never had any great love for atheism or atheists. I didn’t quite want to trust anyone who doesn’t believe in God. Never wanted to be part of that at all.

But I got to thinking about it and most people have some kind of religion though they are all different, and they all believe that their religion was given to them by God and is the best one. This has given license to hate and kill thousands of adherents to rival religions in the name of God through the centuries. Then I look at Christian Science even and the huge pendulum swings the church takes—from progressive to fundamentalist over and over again. Why is that? It occurred to me that the sacred head of the most logical (and what I’d believed was the most truthful and real) religion there is, is being steered by mere human beings (no doubt doing what they feel they are being divinely lead to do) but humans just the same. God is not really at the helm of the Mother Church. Hmmm. How puzzling.

I look at 9-11, Katrina, a zillion catastrophes through history, including just a few days ago the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapse dropping a bunch of cars and their occupants into the Mississippi river and I wonder, God must not have the power to stop terrible things from happening even though tons of people pray. The power of God works in dealing with the clean up after things happen better than keeping stuff from happening in the first place. Lots of good will, generosity, helping hands come from all directions to help out and clean up the mess, and all of those hands are human, not divine. If God is omnipotent and loves us, surely He could stop some of this.

Or—maybe God is just a figment of our deep desire for good things to happen even in the midst of all the bad, and that desire just motivates the human beings to do heroic things that seem miraculous and encourages the human healing processes. I don't know.

Now I’m still grateful for all the good I’ve received from healings I had with the support of Christian Science practitioners. A huge part of the practitioner’s compassionate work is in calming their patients and eliminating their fears. As we know, fear is the major factor of any illness, injury or accident. It’s toxic. Mrs. Eddy knew its danger and advised us to fight fear first. After the negative influence of fear is gone the rest of the healing is easy, or at least easier. The body’s natural recuperative ability can then work to take care of the rest. I used to attribute that healing to God, but now I don’t think so.

As you may know, last year (2006) my teacher Mario started his sabbatical from teaching to do some reading and personal study. Eventually (about September) I asked him what he’d been reading and learning. He was very reluctant to talk about it with me (in retrospect I see that he was trying hard to protect me and the association while he was still sorting out for himself what he’d been learning), but after a while I became insistent to know and eventually he gave in and told me.

If you know him, you know he’s inquisitive. Explores everything and works very hard to get at the truth. Those of you who've worked with him know he has the uncanny ability to cut straight through the bullshit in any situation by challenging common assumptions everybody makes. I guess it was only a matter of time before he did just that about religion and God. He told me he had been reading some books by atheists among others.

I asked him if it was to find out what atheists think. “No,” he said. “To find out what I think.” Now to me, that’s a pretty gutsy and intelligent thing to do (if you dare!) to read books that are basically anti-what you believe in order to sort out whether what you believe really holds water. He said he felt it was worth his time exploring this, so I asked him to send me some info.

He forwarded an article from the Atlantic Monthly (December 2005) “Is God an Accident?” It explains that “human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena." Scientists came to this conclusion after doing extensive experiments on the behavior of infants. (Supernatural phenomena meaning spiritual stuff.) This relates to our ability to think of ourselves in a dual way--seeing our bodies as one thing and our minds as something connected but separate. We can see ourselves from both perspectives, both spiritual and material. So the article is saying that our ability to think this way is really hardwired and part of our nature as human beings, not just something we were educated into believing in churches or growing up at home. (Later I read Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell which goes farther about how this duality is integral in man’s invention of religions. More about that in a minute.)

Funny though it may sound, besides reading about atheism, I found that some of the connections Mrs. Eddy made helped me take another step toward embracing atheism, and without this connection I couldn’t have understood or accepted non-theism, the antithesis of what Eddy believed. She felt that the ills of the body are created by the human mind ("mortal mind"). Fear, worry, anxiety, stress are bad for you and cause illnesses, etc. The mind-body connection is real and powerful. She felt that mortal mind thought up the body and all its conditions as well as its various weird concepts of the nature of God—that God’s anthropomorphic or whatever we think it may be.

Along this line of reasoning, she might well have come to the next conclusion (though she didn’t, or never voiced it if she did) that mortal mind thought up that there is a God at all. Mortal mind is capable of all this other creative thinking, why not this? Maybe God is not a being at all, but a figment of our deep longings for security and the parental comfort we experienced as infants and young children. Mom or Dad would wipe away our tears and give us hope that there will be a happy ending after all. The concept of God is an unseen Mom/Dad that makes us feel the same way. But alas God is unseen, and unreal. Not capable of being a mom or dad at all.

Dennett talks about anthropological evidence of the origins of religions. The death of a loved one, for instance, is so painful that at some point in our development as humans, way back when we were discovering language and community, we began to think of humans at the moment of death as being or becoming spiritual beings that live on and on after they die. This belief subsequently made the pain experienced by their loved ones left behind easier to deal with.

As in my case, if my husband didn’t really stop existing the day he died (May 15, 1995) but continues living as a spiritual being and is still out there somewhere getting on with his life, happy and all right somehow, that concept is easier for me to live with (and that is how I dealt with his death these past 12 years.) Back in history when people began to find an escape from this type of pain in this way, this was the origin of religions, the belief in angels, life beyond the grave, and other spiritual beings (what is called "the supernatural"). And this includes the origin of our concept that there is a God at all—an overarching spiritual being who created everything and is ultimately in charge. A heavenly perfect father-figure. Complete with a whole wish list of abilities longer than superman’s, but without any real abilities at all.

When that clicked for me, I realized that I had been using the concept of God as, well yes, as Life, Truth, and Love as used in Christian Science, but also as a kind of an imaginary friend riding with me in the car or at home or work, for my whole life. While human life, truth and love are elements of life itself, maybe God as a being was just in my religiously-educated imagination. Even Mrs. Eddy didn’t know for sure what happens beyond the grave, but could only speculate based on what she’d witnessed on this side of death.

Speaking for myself, I'm speculating about all this too. I can’t prove that God exists. I can’t prove that He doesn’t. But from what I’ve read and discussed with friends, I’m more inclined now to believe that there isn’t really a God although I always thought so and the concept of God has been a huge part of my whole life (even on my way to becoming a prison chaplain), until the last 10 months or so. But to make myself better understood, know that I am not now calling myself an agnostic. I may not be able to prove it, but I definitely do not now believe in a God.

Moving from a strong religious belief to non-theism (what used to be called atheism) was quite a jump for me and rather quick after I started thinking about it. And I thought I would be upset changing my perception of what my husband’s present experience must be after death through this new lens, but amazingly I’m not. Allen was a great guy and huge part of our lives and love. He lived a pretty nice life and was well loved by all who knew him (especially our son and me). And that's enough. Only he knows what he’s doing now, if anything at all. Any seeming authoritarian statement about it, from a religious perspective or any other, can only be speculation based on our imaginations and our wish lists.

For a very short time after leaving CS (yes I have withdrawn my membership in TMC), I explored Buddhism. The Buddhists strive for enlightenment. But I found that it was only a soft cushion to land on (in the lotus position—ouch!) after taking my quantum leap out of religious faith, but I couldn't stay there long. I see now that Buddhism isn't anything more than another religion with another God-goal waiting at the far end of a white fog of spirituality (even though Buddhists themselves haven't quite noticed that).

But yes, I have started trusting some people who don't believe in a God. At least they are not deluding themselves or claiming miraculous healings that may or may not be able to be proven. Nor are they beating themselves up when some healings still haven't happened after tons of honest, heat-felt prayer and study on their parts or the parts of honest heart-felt practitioners. Stop beating yourselves up. It's not your fault. To put it in a kind of strange way, you were just trained to bark up the wrong tree.

I speculate that the most enlightened I will ever be is knowing that I will never be able to prove anything, but at least I'm smart enough not to go back to barking up that same old tree.

Thankfully, I'm still here

I’ve long neglected my blog due to a move, then another move, then another move, then 3 other jobs, now this new job with a very busy schedule. But I decided I have something worth sharing now. A lot has happened since my last entry here and many, many of my perspectives have totally changed too. I’m not going to try to catch you up on all that’s happened in my life. I guess we’ll just have to fast-forward to now. Maybe someday I’ll take time try to fill in the gaps. Or maybe not.

Today’s blog has to do with 3 issues relevant to me today.

Death

Health Insurance

My current employment

I read Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell a while ago. (BTW, he did a good job. The spell for me has now been utterly shattered and I'm better for it.) He points out that our common awareness of death is what gives us our desire for the emotional out that religion and the arts give us. We need that out because life is hard, but dealing with the death of loved ones is the pits. Religion and the arts help us cope with what we really can’t change.

Intellectually I got that, but I guess I didn't really grasp the necessity for an awareness of death for myself (having spent my life deluding myself that there is a whole other world and life after it) until a few months ago. One night, after I'd gone to bed, my heart started racing like it would jump right out of my chest, without any overexertion on my part. This has happened several times over the years, but this time it just kept it up. After a few minutes it calmed down, and later it started up again. This went on several times over about an hour or so. The next day I was fine, and it hasn't been a problem since, but it scared me.

Without health insurance (or money) I couldn't afford to go anywhere to get checked out. (BTW, I just saw Michael Moore’s SICKO movie and have a whole new perspective on that. Go see it. YOU’LL have a whole new perspective too.) Anyway health insurance was not my intended subject for this blog, but since I brought it up, you should know that the best I could do at the time was just to stay calm, meditate, and hang on. Thankfully I survived and as a result you have this nice blog to read.

(BTW, I WAS able to get checked out a few weeks later, only because I had been volunteering for a cardiac research program for some years. They already had a history on me and were able to do some tests, so they could assure me with confidence that it was stress-related and not something more serious, and probably due to my being in between jobs at the time. That made sense to me and I’m glad to have an explanation. But as I said, at the time, it scared me and there was little I could do about it.)

Anyway, it kind of brought into focus what Dennett was saying in his book. Not that my life flashed before my eyes and I started praying or painting or anything like that, but it did leave an impression. And I begin to understand where he’s coming from.

And this experience helped me come to a totally different decision about my employment. I decided not to go back to selling major appliances at Sears (although I had enjoyed that). Instead, I decided to get a job having fun.

I happened to go bowling one day. I signed up for a bowling class and asked if they were hiring. Next thing I knew I'm now their Youth Director. I'm visiting schools and encouraging kids to sign up for bowling class and junior leagues, and I’m coaching. And the best part is that I get to bowl! And in fact, they WANT me to bowl and get good so I'll be a good example for the kiddos.

AND the work is full time without the uncertainty of commission work. Oh, yea, and a lot less stressful. YaY!!

I'm glad all of these subjects came up, and I came to the realization that our days are limited, and we need to cherish the time we have, and do something valuable and fun in the mean time. Also we need to get this health insurance business worked out in the United States. People are dying everyday because our health care system is so lousy. And I might well have been one of them.

So, if your HMO is letting you down and you’ve already written to your congressman and don't know what else to do, I suggest you get a job that is a little less stressful doing something you love. We really have no idea how long we’ll be around to enjoy the good times.

Serenity in a music store

Hey, EVERYBODY! I got a JOB!!

I'm now working in a music store. I didn't want a desk job. I love music. I'm in Heaven!

My days are spent helping people find just the right sheet music and instruction books, and renting musical instruments. And for the most part the customers are relaxed and happy. Working here feels more like play than work.

Well... almost heaven. There's a catch. The store seems stuck in the past. And I'm beginning to wonder if this is the theme of this store and its employees. I'm surrounded by individuals who are displaying various aspects of being stuck. One employee in my department is very set in his ways of displaying merchandise and telling his co-workers how to do their jobs, though he is not our supervisor. Another co-worker is mentally "stuck" in the memory of a bad personal experience she had years ago, and can't quite move past it. And from the owner on down, no one here likes the thought of computerizing or updating the technology around here.

Consequently, I find that I'm stuck. If I'm not willing to learn their non-technological ways, I'll be of no use here.

Ironically, I also got stuck (while using my computer) this morning, when after spending until 2:00 am last night writing this article, and then somehow losing it and basically having to start over from scratch this morning.

But now that I think about it, this comes on the heels of yet another personal technological "stuckness" I have had over the past two weeks. I had a digital audio recording to do and needed to send it to a friend. The recording went fine, but the sending it to my friend didn't work at all no matter how many ways I tried. Again I was just stuck. This is the pits! Something's got to change.

I was surprised to hear a large number of people praying in unison in the private back room of the music store one evening recently:

"God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference."

It was unexpected, but pleasing to find this aspect of the store. No one told me that they hold AA meetings there. This is a great service to the community. Their prayer was very relevant to everyone, including me.

What can I change about this store, the attitudes of its employees or its owners? Maybe nothing. I can't make people adopt my point of view if they're not receptive. I can't expect a 30-year old store to change its methods overnight just because a newcomer says so.

I've totally lost the first draft of this article and am wasting time continuing to look for it. And I can't make my old laptop in combination with snail-mail paced dial-up do what it just can't do. Give it up! Get something new.

So what CAN I change? My thinking -- about this store, its employees, my department, technology and my recording project. That's basically everything.

So let's begin.

Mentally, I've been criticizing my new co-workers and stereotyping them. I've been feeling a bit superior about my love for computers and the Internet, and feeling that those who don't also have a love of them are inferior. Also I've been irritated by some of their idiosyncrasies and insistence on doing things in certain ways. But isn't this exactly what I've been doing? (This is a classic instance of the pot calling the kettle black!)

But now that I see what I've been doing, I can stop. While we may not agree on many things, we DO have something fundamental in common. We are all ideas created by the divine Mind that thought up the whole universe, including us. That is our common ground. We have that Mind in common. It's our source and we are connected by and through it. That means we are family. And that implies brotherly love and unbreakable spiritual connection.

Since having this change of my thought and beginning to see my co-workers as spiritual family, my last conversation with one co-worker I disagreed with before, was much more cordial. We both tried harder to see the other's point of view. I may never convince these people that computers are the best way to do business in this store, but we can at least get along and do business together without strife. Even lovingly.

Also I had been insistent that my old laptop is the only way I could get this recording project done. But since I began to rethink this, I see that there is newer technology out there that I could be using and I really need to give it a try. It might take a little time, but I can learn what I need in order to get the job done.

Even a pesky problem with a few days of physical constipation (which I didn't mention) has cleared up completely.

And as you can see, I got on with rewriting my article.

I gained some serenity by realizing the difference between the things I can't change and the things I can. I can get a lot more done by changing my thinking.

A shred of hope

Dang! This shredder was about to shred my income instead of the documents I was hired to destroy. I was halfway through when it started shaking and making noises like a cement mixer.

It didn’t seem to be an ordinary jam - I’m always very careful not to overload it. I looked at the casing and it was tightly sealed all around. I couldn’t get it open and didn’t want to break it. I was totally stymied.

So I did what I usually do when I get jammed: I set it aside and prayed. I asked Spirit, to help me see the next doable step.

The next day I decided to try to pry it open again. After about an hour wrestling with it, I finally got it open. I disassembled the mechanism and found a loose staple, which probably was the culprit. But I also found one of the gears was stripped. It was completely worn out.

At first I found myself saying, “I can’t afford to buy a shredder!” But money, as always, is just an excuse for something else. Sure, I could save up over several weeks and buy one, but I really needed it - and the income - now. Something besides money was the issue this time. I prayed about it some more.

I recalled that a man at a hardware store once told me: “Why do people buy drills? Not because they need drills. It’s because they need holes.”

Boing! I didn’t really need to own a shredder. I just needed to do some shredding. Lots of people have shredders. I don’t need to own one in order to use one.

Isn’t this true of so many things? While there is some stuff you really do need to own or rent, a lot of things you don’t. I'm blessed with a wonderful roommate/landlady who lets me use everything in her house. That means I don’t need to own many things, from kitchen appliances to home furnishings. The use of her garage has even spared me having to rent storage space.

I believe in a loving Creator of a universe full of goodness. Not shredders or drills or appliances - material things - but ideas for living usefully and happily. Translating those ideas into specific, worldly things may not be easy at first. But by staying calm in the assurance that good is ever-present, staying open to the likelihood that I will perceive a right solution, helps me to see that solution.

Even what we perceive as a need may not be what we actually need. I’m grateful for all the steps I had to take in order to learn that I don’t have to automatically go out and buy something when something breaks. Sometimes that is the right thing to do, but sometimes, maybe more often that we realize, there are alternatives uniquely appropriate for the situation.

It’s likely that sometime in the future I’ll purchase another shredder, but being able to borrow one was what I needed just then. I very quickly located someone who offered theirs for me to use – and assured me I can use it any time.

The shredding is all done now. And I didn’t have to buy anything. I’m grateful for yet another example of already having what I thought I lacked. (Hey, maybe I don’t need “a” job – maybe I just need to be attentive to all the good there is to do, and the infinite supply of ideas with which to do it! But “a” good job would be nice, too.)