Gossip

Respecting others' privacy is a difficult thing to get right sometimes. You desire to be open with your friends and family. You want to be known and the way to do that, of course, is to let others know you. So, you share things with the people in your life. Joys, sorrows, successes, failures, your strengths, your weaknesses, the good, the bad, and occasionally the ugly. The people you choose to tell are those you trust. You share yourself with caution, and you believe that your trust in others will be respected and returned. And others', in turn, share with you.

And then, out of the blue, someone is gossiping.

It's probably not a 'secret'. You've shared yourself openly with someone or even with many. And yet someone has taken that information and been careless with it. Perhaps they passed it on unthinkingly. Perhaps they didn't consider the information significant or sensitive so thought it open for casual conversation. Or maybe it's just that it's 'old news' - something that isn't even really all the important to you anymore and they're so familiar with it that they spoke without thinking.

Any of those possibilities has the ring of understandability. You've probably been guilty of it yourself a time of two. You spoke without thinking, in earshot of the wrong person, about the wrong topic at the wrong moment. You could kick yourself afterward, but you recognize that what's done it done and you walk on, hoping that those who heard it will either keep it to themselves or perhaps not even register any significance to what you said. You hope.

Most of the time, your hope is well founded. Plenty of the people we interact with are not the mean or vindictive type. They practice the Golden Rule or they remember what their mother said about "if you don't have anything nice to say..." Most likely, they're too busy living their own life and trying to do that the best they can that they don't have either the time or the inclination to be messing around with someone else's.

Occasionally, though, there is the gossip. Some gossips love to pass on whatever they hear to whomever will listen. They want to be the person 'in the know.' Other gossips pretend not to be, letting things drop and then coyly giving out the 'Oh, but please keep that to yourself" line. Then there are those who use the gossip as a weapon. They are the manipulators - the passive aggressives who don't have the courage to come after you outright. They sit on their tidbit of information and wait and when they think the time is right they pull it out and they use it in a deliberate attempt to try to harm and create hardship.

The gossiper should be relatively easy to dismiss. After all, they are petty, small-minded, mean and, certainly, have an essentially pathetic life if they have nothing better to do than to gossip about you anyway - right? For all practical purposes they are a nonentity, a nobody, and are deserving of your contempt, similar to the reaction you would save for something you would scrape off the bottom of your shoe.

And, while you tell yourself that and know the truth of it in the deepest part of you, their influence can still have an impact. The real difficulty is perhaps the knowledge that the gossip got their information from someone that you trusted. It makes you a little more cautious. A little more careful about what you share and with whom you choose to share it. A little more private.

Today's image: http://one4theotherthum

Success

I have to come clean and tell you all that I’m kind of a dork. And, I’ve been that way all my life. I was the dorky kid who liked to read books instead of Tiger Beat magazine. I’m the dorky adult who would still rather read books than watch ‘reality TV’ (although I must be honest and say that I suspect there is nothing actually ‘real’ about the Real World.) I wasn’t a total dork. I did actually prefer a lot of the social aspects of school to the study aspects (math), and that was true of me in college as well as prior to it. But, I was dorky enough to always hand in my assignments.

I was fortunate in that academics came relatively easily to me (again, math excluded.) Reading was fast and I have one of those memories where I can actually remember where I read something – I mean specifically, where on the page it was located – and can often pull it back up and re-read it in my mind’s eye. I could write relatively well and relatively painlessly. I know you’re supposed to write a draft and go back and revise later, but that always seemed a big waste of time to me (and also required far more pre-planning than I was ever willing to do,) so I was the one who ‘revised’ as I went along. I acknowledge many a time when I started a paper at 11:00 pm that was due at 9:00 am the next morning. Would I have written better papers had I allowed myself more time – certainly I would have. However, I made decisions about where and how I wanted to spend my limited time allotment and rehearsals now always won out over the assignment that wasn’t due until then. But not handing something in? Never.

Maybe it was an over-developed sense of responsibility. Maybe it was growing up with parents who came out of the Depression and had that work ethic that didn’t allow you to not do what was expected. Maybe it was the Protestant version of Catholic guilt. Maybe it was my inherent dorkiness. Maybe it was a little speck of academic savvy that told me that ANY points were better than NO points and that no matter how good (lame) my excuse for not doing work, no one really wanted to hear it. Do something and turn it in.

I never tried to kid myself academically. I knew full well when I turned in sub-par work. I counted myself lucky every time I turned in something that was thrown together at the last minute to get the grade that I got. I didn’t complain. I didn’t whine. (There was one time during my freshman year at a small Christian college when I did succumb to the popular excuse of my classmates, “I’m having Spiritual problems,” but even as I was saying it I could hardly stand myself because it was such a lie – unless lack of discipline and too many beers constituted a spiritual problem - so I never pulled it a second time.) I took my grades and moved on.

This has all been coming back to me as I return to campus and am confronted with example after example of people not doing their work. Some show up with the lame excuse – “I had to take my boyfriend to the airport.” Some try to spin their ‘excuse’ to make themselves look like academic all-stars – “I just know that it’s not perfect and I’m willing to take a late grade in order to do my best work rather than turn in something that is sub-par.” Some simply don’t show up at all on the due date, and then return to class a couple of days later as though nothing at all has happened.

Woody Allen is famously quoted as saying that “80% of success in life is just showing up.” I have news for my students. The other 20% is handing in your work. Grades are about math (my old nemesis.) You will not pass if you simply show up and do nothing. You will not pass because you are pleasant. You will not pass because you are cute. You will not pass because I am nice. You will not pass because you have had a hard life and deserve a break. You will pass because you hand in work. And, the work you hand in, must show a minimum amount of competency and understanding. You do not need to be a genius. You do not need to be perfect. You do not even need to be interesting or insightful. You need to be competent. And, you need to hand it in.


Today’s image is successfully snagged from:
http://www.lifesip.com/success.html

Belief

I am a practicing Christian. Even as I write that I wonder what it means to others as they read it. Does it imply that I go to service three times a week, read my Bible regularly, pray daily? Does it mean that I give to charity, practice forgiveness? Or, does it mean that I judge others harshly and declare stridently that anyone who believes other than I do is wrong, evil, and damned to an eternity in hell?

I have thought about these issues regularly throughout my life. While I am a practicing Christian, I am also a person who has sought out education. As a student, I majored in Speech and Theatre and took minors in English and History. I'm also a course away from a Psychology minor and a course away from a Sociology minor. As a graduate student, I took a Master's degree in Communication with a History minor. This course of study exposed me to various people groups and various religions and their value/belief systems.

As a professional, I became a teacher of Intercultural Communication which has caused me to become better acquainted with this variety of religious belief systems over time. I was raised in an evangelical Protestant tradition and I also have a rudimentary understanding of a number of the major religions - Catholicism, Islam, Judiasm, Hindu, Buddhism - as well as acquaintances and dear friends who practice those faiths.

I have also thought about these issues consistently in the last several months as the anniversary of September 11 has loomed closer and the conflict in the US has escalated over the proposed Islamic Community Center near Ground Zero in New York. I have struggled with the concepts of war and military conflict having become politically aware during the height of the Vietnam war, while at the same time coming from a family where military service was, and still is, common. I currently have a nephew serving in Afghanistan. I say all this to give a background to my thoughts. I like to believe that my positions are relatively well thought-out and not the result of knee-jerk reactions or unthinking acceptance of a dogma that was instilled in me as a child.

As a teacher in the field of Communication I spend quite a bit of time thinking about and focusing on the effects of language on our understanding of each other and our relationships with each other. This is part of the reason that I am so disturbed by a recent post by a Facebook friend which included this statement in reference to the recent events in Florida - "a stupid-book of pure-evil and satanically hateful arrogance called the qur'an!"

My friend is a conservative evangelical Christian. When I questioned his comment and suggested that his words might be ill-considered and that burning the holy book of any faith was probably not the path Christ would take (the whole sitting down with sinners and turning the other cheek idea) his response to me was, in part "First of all, the qur'an isn't holy. I just want to make that crystal clear. Even if the deceived muslim and radical religious Islamic-jihads believe that it is - it isn't! There's nothing holy about that book and, I could give a rats-rear-end about someone who wants to make a statement by burning such an unholy book!...There's only "ONE" true Holy Book! We call it the Bible. Let's not get this confused, OK?"

OK - Clearly, I am confused. The word "holy" is defined as "dedicated or set apart for religious purposes," "something sanctified or venerated." Is a book not 'holy' because certain people do not deem it so? Many people in the world reject the Bible - does that make the Bible 'not holy'?

From the Qur'an: "All praise is due to Allah, the Originator of the heavens and the earth, the maker of the angels...He increases in creation what He pleases; surely Allah has power over all things. Whatever Allah grants to men of His mercy, there is none to withhold it...He is the Mighty, the Wise."

From the Bible: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"..."To God belong wisdom and power, counsel and understanding are his"..."the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness."

From the Baha'i prayers: "All praise be unto God Who was Ever-Existent 'ere created things were called into being, when there was no one else besides Him. He is the One Who hath been Ever-Abiding while no element of His creation did yet exist. Indeed the souls of them that are endued with understanding fail to comprehend the least manifestation of His attributes, and the minds of those who have acknowledged His unity are unable to perceive the most insignificant token of His omnipotence."

The words and their order are somewhat different, but it seems that the sentiments of these three passages deliver the same message. Is one of these passages 'holy' while the others are not? Perhaps my friend is right and I am confused. While I love my friend, I cannot agree with his words or the sentiment behind them.

However, on one issue I am not confused. The God I serve is a God of love and forgiveness. He calls people unto him with love and desire. My holy book, the Bible, abounds with passages which portray God as a shepherd, searching high and low for one lost sheep. Other verses describe God as a Protector - our strong tower, our savior and redeemer, our rock, the bread of life and the light of the world. This God, my God, is not a God of hate. And it grieves me deeply that people who share my 'holy book' read it so differently and use it to support their messages of division and intolerance.

Today's image comes from:
www.4a4b.wikispaces.com

Choices

Psychologists say that control is one of those fundamental human needs, right up there with affection and connection to others. We start grasping for it as soon as we can move. We crawl away, then we walk away. We grab for what we want and hold on tight. We want what we want when we want it.

Much of what we do is to try to take control. We do our best to control our surroundings, putting locks on doors and windows and organizing our spaces so we feel in control. We put up boundaries to keep certain people out or to try to keep others in. We have rules and regulations to give us a sense that somehow, in some small way we are in control of our situations and our lives. Maybe control gives us a sense of power. Perhaps we do it because we are afraid of the unknown and taking control of a situation, even in some tiny measure, eases our fears and gives us the illusion of security.

Sometimes, we carry this desire for influence and control so far we make the mistake of thinking that we can control others. That way lies disaster. We have no control over others. The only thing we can ever control is ourselves. And often, I think, we forget the fact that we have choices to make.

I was relaying a story recently to someone who then "jokingly" accused me of being a control freak. I admit that it brought me up short. Was I being a control freak? Was I trying to impose my values or ways of doing something on someone else? It's easy to become confused. Where does my right end and someone else's begin? That's when I came back to the reality of choice.

If I set a boundary that someone else doesn't like, rather than make a choice on their own and take responsibility for that choice, it's much easier for them to simply blame me by calling me a control freak. Does that make me one? No. It makes me a person who has made a choice about my own life, and how I will choose to let others influence it (or in some cases, jerk it around.) Others may not like my choices. That is their prerogative. But their like or dislike does not have to mean that I am wrong or that I need to change.

As I reflected on this encounter, I reviewed my past interactions with this person and my knowledge of their past behaviors. I have made choices this person has not liked. I have made decisions that this person did not agree with. I have done things that this person has not wanted me to do. I begin to suspect that perhaps I am not the person with the control issue here. Perhaps it is this other person telling me, in a very roundabout way, that they want me to behave differently than I do. Perhaps.

Returning to campus has certainly put this issue in my face in inescapable ways these past few weeks. It's easy to get cranky when other people don't behave in the ways that we want them to. It's easy to start down the path of "they really shouldn't do that" or "they really ought to do this." And, I admit to having to give myself a serious talking-to on one occasion since returning as I found myself falling into the trap of this blame game. But that 'talking to' resulted in me reminding myself of the truth of this one fact. I am in charge of me and I am the only person that I can control. Therefore, I am the person that I am responsible for. My behaviors, my words, my choices.

I've chosen to lift today's image from:
www.sadredearth.com

Attitude

I’ve spent the past three days in meetings. This is typical of the way we start a new academic year at the college where I teach. Our administration, in their infinite wisdom, believes fully in the concept that “seat time” = something productive. To that end, they have us in seats – a lot.

I have gone to meetings where we have been told the results of programs from last year, why it is essential that we get our grades in on time, why it is essential that we order our textbooks 3 years in advance, and what to do when a student doesn’t ‘behave.’ Never mind the fact that the ‘results’ from programs could easily be summarized and disseminated in an email, that the majority of us do turn our grades in on time (and have for our entire teaching careers), ditto textbooks, and of necessity we have figured out ways to deal with student discipline issues. Past evidence aside, during these three days we must spend our time sitting collectively in a room listening to others tell us how to address these issues.

To say that these 3 days of meetings are exhausting and frustrating would be a monumental understatement. Here we are – it’s Friday afternoon, students will arrive Monday morning and classes will begin, and instead of being in our offices preparing and working, we are sitting in the science lab watching a rat dissection or wandering in the woods doing an ‘invasive buckthorn data analysis.’ Really? This is a good use of our time at this point in our work schedule? Really?

Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not trying to say that rat dissection has no value or that invasive buckthorn is not a problem. I’m sure they do and they are. And I can even get behind the importance of looking at things that aren’t your area of expertise or even, dare I say, interest. We are, after all, an academy. Exposing yourself to a variety of ideas is part of the goal. If I expect my students to step out of their comfort/interest zone, then I should expect nothing less of myself.

I will go out on a limb, though, and assert that a better use of my time, at this particular time of a semester, would be to be in my office, sitting with my textbooks and syllabi and course plans in front of me, concentrating on how I’m going to do the best job I can, teaching and communicating this information to the students who have signed up for my courses – my courses in Communication which have, I assure you, nothing to do with rat dissection.

So, that’s where attitude comes in. And, it’s also where choice comes in.

I know that I am not alone here. I’m sure that all people, everywhere, have required elements of their jobs that are frustrating. I’m sure that we all struggle with doing tasks assigned by our superiors that we feel are a waste of our time. We sit through required meetings and conferences and seminars thinking about all the things we could be doing with our time if we weren’t sitting here in this room at this moment. And yet, this is our job. And, we are being paid to do it. So what remains is to choose our attitude.

The trick seems to be to figure out a way to make it through the meetings with your attitude remaining positive and your sense of humor intact. It may involve bringing work with you (or in some cases, a blog to write) that will keep you quiet, at least, instead of chatting with your neighbor and distracting others. It may involve putting in your seat time, and recognizing that life is full of these little challenges, and we can let them highjack our peace of mind or we can choose an attitude of zen-like acceptance – that this, too, shall pass and that we might just be the better for it. It may involve going to your happy place and staying there a while as the details of water temperatures and low pressure systems swirl about you and make their own tiny little hurricane as you listen to a session on Meteorology.

And, in today’s case it will definitely involve, at the end of the day, a martini.

Today’s photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshbeeman/2342546008/

Books

When I was a child, the Bookmobile would come every three weeks to my schoolyard. It was, to my 8 year old eyes, a giant thing - an old converted Greyhound bus lined on both sides, top to bottom, with shelves. And on those shelves were books. Books and books and more books. It was my idea of what heaven would be like.

I would rush out as soon as school was over and be as close to the front of the line as possible. Once inside, I was often the last to leave. I looked at every shelf, searching for books that I hadn't yet read. I would pile them in my arms, one on top of the other, taking as many as I could possibly carry on the eight block walk back home. Once home, I would take the first one off the pile and dig in. Hours I would spend laying on my bed or on the living room sofa buried in a story of someone, somewhere.

One day, in particular, stands out in my memory. I had my pile of books in hand and went to the checkout lady. As she began going through the books, she started to frown. I had books that were 8th grade books, not 3rd grade books. I couldn't have those. "Why not?" I asked. "Because if you read these books now, you won't have anything to read when you reach 8th grade," was the reply. I argued that I had already read all the 3rd grade books, and 4th, and 5th, and so on. She would not budge. I could not have books above my grade level. I left empty-handed.

When I arrived home, my mother, knowing full well what day it was, asked me where my books were. Out came the story. And out came her coat. She marched me back the 8 blocks to school. When we arrived, the Bookmobile lady was getting ready to close the doors and leave. My mother insisted she let us in. She turned to me and said, "Get your books - whichever ones you want." Then she turned to the Bookmobile lady and had a conversation. My mother was polite, courteous, and insistent. The librarian argued. My mother stood her ground. When it was all over, I went out the door with my 8th grade books, plus one more just to be ornery. My mother helped me carry them home.

My mother, with her 8th grade education, understood something far better than the librarian with the college degree. She understood interest. What my reading level was supposed to be given my age was not important. What was important was allowing me to read the things that I was interested in. What was important was encouragement and freedom to explore. What was important was the reading - no matter the subject matter or the designated reading level.

Several years later when I was in ninth grade I had a paperback copy of Peyton Place sitting on my desk in English class. Upon seeing it my teacher's eyebrows raised and she asked with some alarm "Does your mother know you're reading this?" I didn't understand her concern or even really her question. Of course my mother knew what I was reading. And of course it was okay with her. It was a book. As such, it was fair game. And it wasn't until the teacher asked the question that I even considered the possibility that there might be "inappropriate" reading material. Books were books. They were there to read. If you could understand them, you were free to read them. If you couldn't understand them, you were free to try. You were expected to get out the dictionary to help you if there were words you didn't understand.

My mother and father had little money. They could not afford to give their children excessive gifts of toys or games or clothes or records. (For those of you too young to remember, records were made from vinyl and played music - the old-fashioned version of a CD, which is what we had before we downloaded music off the internet onto iPods.) They could not afford to take me on vacations to amusement parks or other 'playgrounds'. They could not afford to send me to expensive summer camps where we learned to ride horses or play basketball or soccer. Gifts were few and far between.

But gifts they gave me - in teaching me the joy of reading and giving me the freedom to read what I wanted to. It cost them nothing but the determination to stand up and defend my interest and the gas money to drive me to the downtown library every three weeks to choose my books, once I outgrew the Bookmobile. This gift has outlasted any childhood trinket I may have wanted and taken me farther than they ever imagined.

So, this weekend as the temperature and humidity rise, I'm headed to the sofa with a book. Today I'm reading about the city of Florence during the Renaissance and the reign of the Medicis. My mother, Florence, I think would be pleased.

Monarchs

I've been reading a lot of historical fiction lately. I picked up The Other Boleyn Girl last summer and finally got around to reading it this summer. Once I started it, I really couldn't put it down. It's the story of King Henry VIII and his decision to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn (one of his many mistresses,) and his ultimate decision to have her beheaded. It's well written and compelling. Even though I knew what the ending would be, I still wanted to find out what happened next.

I've gone on to read two more of the author's novels depicting the life and wives of Henry and have another sitting on my bedside table. They are an interesting read on the role of women in the culture and make one grateful to be a woman now as opposed to then - jewels and castles notwithstanding. Ultimately, women were chattel, which I knew intellectually but I had never really thought about 'being property' in daily terms - what they would be required to do to serve the men who owned them, whether that be their fathers, brothers, uncles or husbands. It's sobering, to say the least.

Henry, as Monarch, had ultimate authority. There was no one above him - particularly after he made the decision to split from the Catholic church and papal authority. He declared himself head of the Church of England, as he was head of the government of England. He answered to no one which made him, of course, an extremely dangerous man. Dangerous to oppose, dangerous to disappoint.

While I would like to believe that Henry was exceptional and historians certainly allude to his prowess in many arenas (and certainly he was exceptionally self-involved and ultimately insane) I suspect that, truth be told, he was rather common. He was a man who believed that he could put himself above the rules - that the rules simply didn't apply to him. That attitude is not unlike the attitude we still see today. Men and women, boys and girls, all making the determination that they want what they want and they have every right to go after it, no matter who they trample on the way. Whether the "rules" are social codes, laws, moral precepts, or even simply promises or oaths one has taken, many seem to believe that those things are for others - not them.

We cannot turn on the news, pick up a newspaper, or access the internet without seeing evidence of this behavior everywhere. Celebrities, politicians, church leaders, common people - no group seems safe from this incredible sense of our own 'exceptionality.' But the lesson we can learn from Henry and his decisions is that no matter how powerful we are, ultimately our choices always have consequences. And though we may escape them for awhile, sooner or later they do catch up with us.

On the brighter side, I also have Monarchs in my garden. They come in the morning to visit my zinnias while I sit on the deck drinking my coffee. They've been keeping me company while I read about, and contemplate, the lessons of Henry.


Image of Henry - www.economicvoice.com/.../5008212