A Promise Not to Text

February 9, 2011

Discover how you can help prevent car accidents.

My grandson was killed several years ago but by a driver who fell asleep at the wheel. So I know the pain of suddenly losing a person you love very much. It is doubly painful to know that the accident could have been prevented.

That is why I want to share with you a video my brother sent me yesterday.  I think everyone who has ever texted (apparently it’s a real word) should absolutely watch. It is ten minutes but can save a life, maybe even yours.

The AT&T “Don’t Text While Driving” documentary below focuses on several young people who were texting while driving; it was the last thing they would ever type. The CoolestOne.com, where I first saw the video, says it should be shown in every high school. I agree. Even more, every parent should require their children to watch it.

And if you text, watch it even if you don’t “usually” text while driving. Any distraction that takes your eyes off the road has the potential to kill you or another person. Is the risk worth it to get that message typed immediately?

After you watch the video, be sure to scroll down and read the rest of the post for a text challenge.

After watching this video, I wondered what I could do, besides putting it in my blog and sending it to family and friends. Then it hit me. Start a campaign to get people who text to promise not to text while driving. I was about to start one on this post when I went back to the CoolestOne.com and discovered they had created the following pledges:

I pledge I will not text while I am driving.

I pledge I will not text while driving and will use only hands free calling if I need to speak on the phone while I am driving.

I pledge I will not text or use my phone while I am driving. If I need to use my phone, I will pull off the road to a safe location.

I wonder if the pledge might catch on more quickly if it were written in “text” language. I frankly don’t know what that would look like since I don’t text. But send me your contributions of any of the pledge statements above in the shortened words and phrases you would use if you were to type it on a cell phone.

Then send that text — when you are not driving — to everyone on your contact list. See how many of them will be willing to take the pledge with you.

I will post all contributions on this blog once a week for three weeks so more people can see it.

Since it takes two to have a text conversation, here is one more suggestion. Pledge not to engage in texting or a cell phone conversation with someone who doesn’t have a hands free phone if you know the intended recipient is behind the wheel. The other person may not want you to stop the conversation, but at least you won’t be responsible for encouraging him or her to drive distracted.

How much better to later see your friend healthy and in person than laid out on a cold slab or reduced to ashes in a jar.

Trust me. I know of what I speak.

P.S. I don’t insist that others be politically correct, but I did wonder why all of the young people who were shown in the video were white. Surely people of color also text while driving and many of them have been killed as well. Perhaps none of those families were willing to be photographed. It’s just something I tend to notice since I live in an interracial area and seeing people of all one color always strikes me as unusual. It doesn’t distract from the power of the video; I just think it would be more impactful for more people if there were teens of other races.

An Antidote to Uncivil Discourse

January 22, 2011

What power do you have to prevent gridlocked partisanship?

• Raise your hand if you have called others jerks, Neanderthals, stupid, idiots, bastards, morons, or anything else we tell our children they shouldn’t call another child on the playground.

• Raise your hand if the people to whom you address these words change their minds and thank you for pointing out the error of their ways.

• Raise your hand if you expect civility from those with contrary opinions, but tolerate extreme statements by those with whom you agree.

• Raise your hand if you think the reason there is corrosive and shrill partisanship in government and on the airways is because we, the people who elect those who represent us, don’t demand more civility.

• Raise your hand if you are willing to do something about it.

As long as we insist that our spouse, child, neighbor, brother, boss, co-worker, parent, aunt, uncle, etc. is the one who isn’t willing to compromise and won’t listen to reason — all the while shutting our minds to what he or she is really saying — we won’t find common ground.

And if we don’t open our minds to allow a new idea to slip under the ones we are sure are true, how can we expect our politicians to listen to the other side, let alone compromise in order to resolve the complex problems of a crowded world?

Can we change this atmosphere? Yep. Is this difficult to do? You betcha!

I know it is hard because I have strong opinions, always based on what I assume are solid facts, of course and I have to be really convinced another idea is superior. However, I try to “walk the walk” that I suggest others take and so will periodically read blogs by people with whom I don’t often agree.

Guess what? Sometimes I change my mind.

This happened recently on the Worldwide LWL (Life Without Limits) blog by Barry and Heather Goss in a post called The Big (Poor Me) Gamble. I skim their blog from time to time and find it is too conservative for my tastes. However, I was curious about what he had to say about Lesley Stahl’s segment on “Sixty Minutes” a few weeks back, about gambling machines. Apparently they now create slot machines that “program” players to want to play more by designing them to give constant positive feedback; even though the odds are no better then they were before they “improved” the interface.

Since the odds are always in favor of the house, I’ve always said that people who gamble are mathematically challenged. That’s why I don’t gamble, though I’m hardly a math whiz. But I go to Las Vegas about once a year to visit a friend and we’ll walk through the casinos and watch people sitting before noisy, flashing machines. Dropping in coins. Inserting debit cards. Most of them don’t look  like they’re really enjoying themselves, but who am I to judge?

Should states outlaw machines that entice people to gamble more than they would otherwise? That seemed to be the undertone of the the 60 Minutes segment. Without thinking much about it, I might agree that such a rule could help to keep people with addictive personalities from losing their jobs, homes, possessions, and families.

The betting genie, of course, is not going back in the bottle. Every state except Hawaii and Utah allow some form of legal gambling and states now encourage gambling to help fill coffers in times of tight budgets. I don’t know if it is true that many (some say most) people who gamble can’t afford it,  but 85% of Americans have gambled in their lifetimes and 60% gambled at least once in the last year. Out of that number, 1% are pathological gamblers and another 2 to 3% are problem gamblers.

As I watched the show, I thought about alcoholics and alcohol abusers (a much higher percentage) and no one is talking about bringing back prohibition. But I didn’t particularly question the tone of the interview.

Then when I read Barry’s post, I realized that the agenda of the segment avoided the question of a gambler’s responsibility. When Lesley talked with two women addicted to slot machines, she didn’t ask them to acknowledge the role they played in their current plight. After all, no one sat them down on a stool and told them to keep dropping in coins.

Barry makes a big point of individual responsibility and I agree that if we took away all activities that might possibly be harmful to someone somewhere, we would have little left.

Of course, if people did what I thought they should do, they wouldn’t gamble unless that had money to throw away, and they wouldn’t buy houses they couldn’t afford, and they wouldn’t take advantage of people who tried to buy houses they couldn’t afford, and they would speak to others with kindness, and most of all, they would treat everyone with compassion, even those with whom they strongly disagree.

After reading the blog, I realized I may agree with Barry more than I earlier thought. There are still some things he says that are critical of others in ways I wish he wouldn’t be.  Nevertheless, I will read him again to see whether he says something else that can change my mind.

It would be nice, of course, if something I wrote in my blog caused him to change his mind. (I doubt he even reads this.) But before I can encourage someone to listen to me, if I want us to find common ground, I must listen to him or her with the same intention.

In the end, this business of reaching across the aisle, or across the fence, or across a strained relationship begins with a commitment to follow the Golden Rule — doing to others what we want them to do to us and refraining from doing to others what we don’t want them to do to us. In other words, listening to them as we would like them to listen to us.

That thought leaves me with two more things I’d like you to consider.

• Raise your hand if you think your senator or congressperson follows the Golden Rule.

• Raise your hand if you live by the Golden Rule.

How to Pass On Your Passion

October 8, 2010

If you need to move out of an organization you started, do you do so with joy, or will there be grief and regret?

Wednesday evening about one-hundred of us stood on the patio under sturdy tarps covering food stations contributed by several restaurants for the occasion. (It was the end of our first winter storm — one week after our record high of 113 degrees.) We were celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Wellness Community-Foothills, a non-profit cancer support program in Pasadena, California. As a co-founder, I was one of the honorees at the $75-a-person event.

Although I am no longer on the board or give workshops, when I was involved, I did whatever I could to support an organization that has served tens of thousands of cancer patients and their families.

After I was given a lovely bouquet and a certificate of appreciation from the mayor and our county supervisor, I needed to say a few words. I repeat them here (approximately, since I didn’t write them down) because I think you may find them helpful if you are in the beginning, middle, or end of organizing some new venture.

Thank you for this honor. When I was asked to say a few words, I wasn’t sure what to say and decided to get my inspiration after I came here and saw all of you. That’s when I realized I knew hardly anyone! When I was involved in the first fund-raising events, I knew the names and faces of most of the participants. Tonight I recognize only a small handful.

When we began this organization, I wasn’t thinking about what it would look like in twenty years. All I knew was that the community needed a place where cancer patients and their families could get comprehensive social and psychological support.

I had a passion to make that happen. Looking around at all of you, I can see that an organization only continues through the effort of new people who catch the same passion that began it — and then expand it in their own way.

So I am glad to see all of you here, even though I don’t know who you are.

Later in the evening a woman said that my comments reminded her of a speech she had heard on the stages of creating an organization. There was first the recognition of a need, a passion to make a change, a vision for how that could be achieved, the work involved in accomplishment, the need to do something else, and the grief of letting go.

She said, “I think you are in the stage of grief, seeing all these people you don’t know taking part in something that used to belong to you.”

“Good heavens, no,” I replied. “Far from it. I am absolutely thrilled that others also have a passion to make this organization successful.”

Then I told her that, “I believe one of the things that has prevented my grief in moving on is that I have other passions. For example, about thirteen years ago, I co-founded CancerOnline, a non-profit Internet program where I served as pro-bono executive director for five years. With that experience on the web, I later created LearningPlaceOnline, and then Support4Change and ChildhoodAffirmations. Along the way I wrote three books, am actively writing a fourth, and have ideas for two others.”

I continued, “So you see, if one stops an activity, for one reason or another, and there is nothing to fill the void, then I suppose grief is natural. But if you always have something to catch your interest and your passion, you don’t have to grieve. You can let go joyfully, celebrate the involvement of new people, and move on.”

I believe that one cause of grief is our ego’s attachment to what we’ve accomplished. It says, “You are the role you played in making that organization, or activity, successful. Since it was successful, so are you. That organization is you.”

Operating from the true self, however, you can create an identity that says, “You are a person who has accomplished something that makes the world a better place. You are a person who saw a need and met it. You are a person who can see another need and, using the skills you have, can meet those needs with the same passion you gave to other projects.”

Based on my experience, if I were to suggest the steps to creating a successful ongoing organization and then moving on, I think it would be this.

Notice a need that has not been met by anyone else.

Notice whether you have a passion to meet that need.

Find others who can help you accomplish it

Use the passion and skills of all of you to create the best possible solution to the need you are trying to meet.

When you have given all you can give, or when there is something else in your life that needs your focused attention, notice all the people who are still involved in the project you’ve created.

Give them your best wishes, celebrate their efforts, offer whatever advice you can, and let go, knowing they will each bring their best to this venture you helped create.

Embrace your new passion or responsibility with enthusiasm.

FOOTNOTE: Over the years The Wellness Community formed 25 separate facilities across the country. Another organization, Gilda’s Club, also created to meet the needs of cancer patients. Recently the two groups combined to create the Cancer Support Community, the largest organization of its kind. This is an example of how you don’t know what will happen when you begin something new.

So my advice for you who see a need is just to go for it. Don’t try to imagine accolades you’ll receive for your success, for you may not be successful for any of a hundred different reasons. However, your intention to create something of value for the world will become like a snowball rolling down the hill, gathering more momentum as it rolls. The shape it takes will not be entirely in your hands.

Photo credit: IndiaFloristOnline.com

Sharpen Mental Skills and Collect Memories

July 29, 2010

On vacation (or when you get home), play this game to sharpen your mental skills and help you collect memories for the future.

There are two parts to this post’s Take-a-Break: curiosity and memory.

Develop Curiosity

An illustration for this first part is a picture I took while flying over the alps from Italy to Munich in early November 2007. I was puzzled by the patches of white against the dark ground. It looks as though this is snow on a hiking trail, or perhaps on a ski run, but it is only the beginning of November. Yet if it is snow, why would there be only white in these lines but not in the deep valleys?

There isn’t much snow yet on the peaks, so why are there breaks in the white, as though there are a deep holes filled with snow? If there wasn’t much snow on the mountains as a whole, why did the “snow” create a pattern like this? There are other areas that are in the shadow more than these appear to be and I assume they would continue to have snow, so what makes these areas special?

My interest in the photo is a little like that of members of the Google Earth Community who examine Google Earth pictures to find anomalies that are interesting to them. Look at an enlarged picture if you think that would help — and tell me if you have the answer.

Of course, there are many who would look at this and only think of it as a beautiful mountain scene. If they noticed the white at all, they would ignore it or file it as an-unknown-thing-not-worth-pursuing. Yet doesn’t it puzzle you? Don’t you wonder what it means?

What I’d like to suggest is that whatever you look at this summer (and of course, for the rest of the year as well), you look with questioning eyes. This could include pictures in print and on TV. Then, when you see something that is a puzzle, try to find out what it is.

There are a zillion things that I don’t know the why of, but whenever I take the time to see what they might be, when I ask questions about “why” they are the way they appear — even if I don’t find the answer — the mere fact that I’ve tried enriches my life.

Pay attention to at least one thing that you haven’t known how it is made, why it looks the way it does, or its possible purpose. Then pursue the answer.

Memory Recall Suggestion

The second suggestion for this take-a-break is to test your recall memory. For example:

If you look out the window of a plane, take a moment (15 seconds will do) to capture with your mind as much as you can. Then close your eyes and see how much you remember and open them again to notice what you missed. You’ll have to do this quickly, of course, since the plane is going so fast.

This is an interesting way to sharpen my mind when it’s feeling a little sluggish. And I think it helps when I play a game called pelmanism on the Internet that you may also enjoy. This is a memory card game in which a pack of cards is spread out face down and players try to turn up pairs with the same symbol. I use the easiest form with 12 pairs of animals. It helps me to make up a story about them as I go along, usually based on the first animal that appears. Try it. Keep your brain cells engaged.

What Narrative Do You Believe?

April 28, 2010

What is the narrative or belief that supports your opinions and actions?

A segment on 60 Minutes this past Sunday was called “Jihadists and ‘The Narrative.’ ” It told the story of a Britain named Maajid Nawaz, who was a non-practicing Muslim when, at the age of 13, he became a “genuine, committed ideologue,” convinced of the truth of what he calls “the narrative” — the belief that America hates Muslims and wants to destroy them.

After recruiting many people to the cause, he eventually went to Egypt, was arrested and put in jail with jihadists who had been there for twenty or more years and had gone through a process where they had abandoned their jihadist views. At first he thought it was his job to re-convince them that the narrative was right. But through the discussion process he began doubting the strength of his own convictions.

He could see that “today’s radical ideology is closer to fascism than true Islam.” After four years in prison, he returned to England and now rebuts the “very narrative he once passionately promoted.” In fact, he believes that “countering the narrative is the core of the solution, making this narrative as unfashionable as Communism has become today.”

It was refreshing to watch him discuss these ideas with other Muslims and to notice that he could actually make progress with some of them, though his goal of countering the narrative will be slow and will take a long time. Toward that end he co-founded the Quilliam Foundation, a think tank that is mostly funded by the British government. The idea is to influence the two million British citizens who are Muslim, especially the roughly 2,000 of them who the government says are Islamic radicals who pose a threat to national security.

As I watched the show, I was glad to see someone counter a myth that has caused the deaths of thousands, and will probably cause many more deaths before the number of Muslims who believe in it are fewer. Yet I wonder who many viewers were ready to challenge their own most cherished assumptions.

We all believe in a narrative that helps explains our world view, our philosophy of life, and most of all, our religion or spirituality.

The problem comes when we accept our narrative as true without question, which is at the core of political positions we hold. For example, one narrative claims that illegal immigrants, undocumented immigrants — or whatever you call the people who have become the center of intense controversy in Arizona and the rest of the United States — cost more than they provide to the economy. Another narrative claims the opposite.

Both positions cannot be exclusively true at the same. However, truth can be found somewhere between the opinions on the left and on the right. To reach that point requires persons holding both positions to examine their narratives more closely. To examine the narratives we hold requires courage and an open mind, which is often in short supply in those with the most strongly held positions. To find courage requires us to recognize the danger of continuing on a path of conflict that is likely to end in even worse problems than we have now.

When we have found our courage, we can stop denigrating the narratives of others (even when we are convinced the suppositions behind those narratives are shaky, after all, they seem accurate to the other guy). Most of all,  courage requires us to acknowledge that possibly, just possibly, there may be flaws in the facts we use to shore up our opinions.

One of the most difficult narratives to dislodge is the narrative that lies behind religious beliefs. Three years ago in the blog I wrote a two-part post called Examining Why You Believe What You Believe. In it I posed questions such as the following:

ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS

• What do I see in nature that causes me to believe in the religion I profess, or to not believe in a religion?
• How do my relationships, ethnicity and sex affect my choice of a religion or spiritual practice, or do they cause me not to believe in a religion at all?
• What effect does my understanding of history and current events have on my religious beliefs?
• If I believe in a “God” (or a spirit or power I call by another name), would I define my God as authoritarian, benevolent, critical, or distant? What is there in my experience that supports my belief?
• What is there about my life that causes me to conclude the creation of the universe occurred as I believe it did?

If you believe that God will punish you if you don’t toe the official line, then you better know the rules. If you aren’t sure that you know the rules, you will tend to believe there is someone else who does and believe that person.

Then, if you are a Muslim, you might agree with the “logic” of Ayatollah Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, a senior Iranian cleric. According to the Times of India, he said that earthquakes are caused by, “Many women who do not dress modestly . . . lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society.”

If you are a fundamentalist Christian who believes Pat Robertson speaks for God, you will more likely to accept his statement that the earthquake in Haiti can be blamed on the “Haitian’s pact with the devil.”

Robertson wasn’t the first Christian who saw moral implications in earthquakes and other “acts of God.” Back in 1750 John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church, placed the blame of earthquakes on mankind, though God was the one who carried out the sentence of retribution for mankind’s sins.

Most of us today scoff at these attempts to explain events over which we have no control, but for centuries, until tectonic plates were discovered, humans tried to explain them with whatever evidence they had. Since part of their experience was a belief in a God who sent whatever came into their lives, refreshing rain or floods, health or disease, quiet tremors or major earthquakes, it was natural that divine forces were blamed, or praised, for whatever happened in their lives

It is easy to see that once you blindly accept the theory behind a narrative or belief, you are more likely to slide down a slippery slope to acceptance of questionable beliefs.

This is not to imply that there is no validity to our narratives. The narrative that says children who are criticized are likely to become critical adults, or the narrative that says spouses who treat one another with kindness are likely to remain married, have good evidence to back up that position.

What evidence do you have for your view of the world and what should be done to make it a better place for everyone, even those who disagree with you?