Does Hope = Happy?

People say they want to be happy.  They often say they hope they can be happy.  Are they saying “hope” and “happy” are synonymous?  Hmmm…I wonder.  Let’s look at a few examples.

We just got through the worst of the flu season.  The most awful truth was, does your kiddo have a bad cold or the deadly flu?  No, you are not happy as you wonder what to do.  So you visit the pediatrician, or maybe an urgent care, hoping it is just a really bad cold.  Yes, if it is, you will be ever so happy to be labeled an overprotective parent, knowing the child will recover as all kids do from a bad cold.  So you “hope” you will be “happy” with the end result.  Sort of synonymous, isn’t it?  Well, let’s go on.

You have a trip to make from Bakersfield to say, San Jose.  The car has been making a funny sound off and on, nothing you can identify, so you “hope” it will make the miles needed so you can be “happy” with the results and enjoy your trip.  But—is “hope” going to get you there?  Shouldn’t you check it out before you leave?  Should you just “hope” you get there without incident or know what the problem is?  If you are traveling alone, you should probably check it out first, right?  Okay.  Inner argument over, you get the car checked out, find out what needs to be done or doesn’t, and you leave for San Jose—“happy.”

On a lighter note, let me give you an example of a friend who could be happy, truly happy, from buying a lottery ticket on Thursday morning and hoping her numbers would be a winner during the weekend drawing.  Oh, how she hoped to win the lottery!  Her spirits would lift, she would smile, she had positive words for everyone—one happy camper!  It was fun to be around her and if you needed a lift in spirit, she was your go-to person—after she bought the lottery ticket Thursday morning.  Then they would draw the winning numbers on the weekend.  She would sit glued to the televised drawing, nearly salivating with anticipation.  It was HER MOMENT OF HOPE AND HAPPY!  If the first couple of numbers matched hers, the room was literally filled with the energy of hope and happy.  But every time, there would be a number pulled that meant she hadn't won.  Then the room would have the positive energy sucked out of it, her smile would fade, her eyes become dull, and the ticket bent to the shape of her fingers as she clutched it would silently drop to the floor, landing soundlessly.  I would make inane remarks like, “Wow!  That was close!  You were so close!  How exciting!  Maybe next time, huh?  Say, how about we go grab some tacos or whatever?”  I would watch her get up like a zombie, hear her mumble she was tired and going to bed, and watch her shuffle, literally, toward her bedroom.  And I would quietly let myself out her back door, making sure the door was locked behind me.

It never did become something that didn’t cause me to hope with her and for her, but her happiness depended on the numbers on a piece of paper.  And her hope was that they would make her happy.  I think I hoped she would win so she would be happy more than Thursday through the lottery draw on the weekend.  Ah—the tenuousness of hope linked with happy.

So is it hope that makes us happy?  Or is it hope that keeps us going until we reach happy?  Or again, are they synonymous?  I, personally, do not think they are synonymous but I think as long as we maintain some hold on hope, our chances are better to find happy.  Another question I have to ask is do I want to be happy?  I don’t think so.  To me, happy is a fleeting feeling, here now, gone now.  But peace, calm, self assurance, a love for others and empathy—those last day and night. Weeks.  Months.  Years.  Yes, they will vary in degrees of attainment, but they are not dependent on what numbers are read, what outside events occur.  They are there after a crisis, a sudden success, a day at work, a loving hug. 

No, I do not hope for happy.  I hope for the love, peace, calm, compassion I can share and receive.  Ironically, that makes me happy.  How about you?

G = Good Grief!

Ever feel like Charlie Brown?  No matter how hard you try, there’s a Lucy to remind you of your shortcomings?  Someone you try to talk to that charges you a nickel, again Lucy, to listen to you and tell you you might as well accept you’re a loser?  We smile at poor Charlie Brown and wince when Lucy snatches away the football as he is ready to really kick it this time—surprised—again.  Well, after a while, we echo Lucy in saying, “Good Grief!” as we commiserate with poor Charlie Brown.  Or is it Charlie Brown who wails out “Good Grief!” time and time again?  No matter.  This blog is written simply to list sayings that can help counter the Good Grief syndrome.  Here are our favorites:

“If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.”  David Carradine

“Forever is composed of nows.”  Emily Dickinson

“For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it.  For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it.  For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it.”  Ivan Panin

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”  Pericles

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.”  William Hazlitt

“There are many paths to enlightenment.  Be sure to take one with a heart.”  Lao Tzu

“We cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening our own.”  Ben Sweatband

“Be an explorer.  The universe is filled with wonder and magical things.”  Flavia

“Act as if what you do makes a difference.  It does.”  William James

“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.”  Dorothy Thompson

“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?”  George Eliot

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”  Anais Nin

 Like those?  We do.  They often keep us going.  But we will conclude with our favorite and the one we turn to most often by Carl Jung—

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.”

Think about it… good night.  Sweet dreams.

F= F A I L= Find An Inside Light

We look at the word FAIL and we often shrink from it.  No one likes to fail.  We look at it as coming up short, being embarrassed, a struggle that didn’t reach the desired goal.  In what we do with the connotation of the word, we can doom ourselves to self recrimination, more struggles, and more temerity in taking on a new task.

Now some people simply look at the word fail and act on it as an opportunity to move forward, learn from a failed attempt at something to press on, remembering what did not go as planned, to make sure they don’t repeat a certain action and rather eliminate it so they won’t fail the next try.  But something needs to take place for this to happen.

Thinking of scientists, Hawking being one that comes to mind since his recent death, we have to wonder what kept him going, trying, failing, and trying again.  Having read so many of his inspirational quotes and looking inside myself, I realized that we all—ALL—have the potential to use a “fail” to become better, stronger, and individually successful in our own way.

If we look at FAIL as an acronym for “find an inside light,” we can let ourselves go as high and as far as we desire.  I look at the students I taught English composition to.  Those who could not pass the class never found that light inside themselves.  They gave up.  And hey, we all do that at times.  But those who kept trying, who refused to succumb to the temporary darkness of failing one step in the process, could reach inside and pull out enough light to keep going and in the end, pass the class.  Sound too simple?  Maybe if we put some technical words into it, made it a sort of spiritual goal or something like that, that would create a challenge and be something worth striving for?  Sorry.  It is simple.  Just find the light inside you, use it, and presto-chango, abracadabra, ta da!

I truly believe we are each born with that inner light that says we should try—fail or not—try.  I know it can be labeled the instinct for survival, motivational attitude, positive thinking—call it what you like.  To me, it’s a light.  You know you see it in others.  Can you say honest truth you aren’t drawn to people who have that light from the inside?  You click with them.  They inspire you.  You count on them to be there.  You gravitate toward their inner light.  Well, at least some of us do.  You may not but oh, you are missing so much if you don’t!

I have seen people that are broken—physically, emotionally, mentally—strive to share that inner light in the face of horrific  things and keep going.  I admire them.  I love them!  They don’t brag, talk about the way they overcome one thing or another, or literally show off and talk about their accomplishments and greatness.  No, the people with a real, true light inside quietly keep moving on, using the failures to learn from and help others so they don’t have to fail, too.

I want to relate two instances where the light from inside another being helped me find my inside light.  I had volunteered to help feed the homeless and their animals.  It can be gut wrenching to see people hungry, cold or burned from the sun, depending on the season, and know you are only temporarily helping what they go through 24/7.  Yes, they were very grateful and it made us ache inside to go home after trying to help them and realize I didn’t have to sleep on the ground, scrounge for food.  I could take a hot shower, then go open my fridge and scan a surplus to choose what I wanted to eat.  Talk about feeling guilty!  I couldn't find light inside—only darkness.  They were hurting, silently, and I was under a roof, well-fed.  But then on one walkabout to distribute food and toiletries, their light reached out to me in a profound way.  The previous month, our founder and fellow worker had broken her ankle and couldn't do the walkabouts so we were short one person and nothing was said until we came the third time in a row without her.  That day, the people we were “helping” asked us about her absence.  We explained her situation, not thinking it was that relevant to their situation and they immediately were concerned.  We were asked if she was okay, in much pain, did she have help to get around, how long was she going to be off her foot?  Not just one person asked, but several.  In my being busy handing out lunches, dog food, necessities I began to feel the concern they shared for her and how she was.  I started slowing down, looking into the eyes of each person who asked and I saw it.  Their inner light.  Their genuine concern and caring.  That inner light of their essence as another human being.  I think all of us were feeling it because we stayed talking, reassuring them that she would be fine, and yes, it would be about another month before she could do walkabouts again, and there was a sharing of light amongst all of us there.  It was no longer we who helped and those who were being helped.  We all cared about the ills of another person that we all valued.  That light inside them was beautiful, inspiring.  Here were people who had nothing—literally nothing—asking about our friend, now their friend.  Outside, they had failed.  They were on the streets, struggling just to survive.  They might as well have worn shirts with a huge F on their backs to signify failure so far as society was concerned.  But their inner light, their compassion and caring, was as far from failure as the expanse of the universe.  It was a definite wow moment that lasted for days as I found my inner light to connect with theirs.

The other example/instance I would like to share is also from a real-life experience.  I had had some real upsets with family, a friend, and some professionals I was trying to deal with.  I was being continually reminded I had failed and failed and told to change my attitude and “ways” if I wanted to be accepted.  I had clung to my integrity to the point that it was pretty much all I had left.  And there was little light of any sort in my life.  I met with a friend for coffee because she was down, too, and I felt like if I got outside of myself, I would be in a better state of mind.  My friend has stage four cancer and she cried and told me she was going to go off the experimental drug she was on because the side affects left her so miserable and in so much pain that she couldn’t take anymore.  My stomach dropped to my knees as she went on to tell me that when she told her oncologist, he told her at best she would have two months left if she went off this particular chemo drug.  I felt like my whole world inside had gone black, and yet, I had no right to selfishly want her to prolong her life in pain because I would miss her so bad should she die.  She cried, we told her we were with her regardless of what she decided as we didn’t live inside her painful body, and as we offered our heartfelt support to her, she smiled.  We held her hand across the table and heard her say, “At least you hear me and that means so much!  You don’t think I’m a quitter, do you?”  I assured her that no—I did not ever think of her as a quitter!  She smiled again and said, “I’ll see my grandson again and this time, I won’t be in pain the whole time.  And you and I can get together and I won’t be hurting as much.  Thank you for understanding!  I love you!”  There it was.  That inner light from her, creeping into me.  Oh, yes!  The tears flowed when we parted and the full impact hit me.  But she was looking forward to no pain and her light from inside shone through and reached into my pitiful self darkness.  How dare I—was all I could think.  My problems were nothing compared to her pain, the life and death decision she had made!  And yet, her light was there.  She had not FAILED!  She FOUND AN INSIDE LIGHT!

I have to admit, clouds often try to hide my inside light.  But I know it is there.  I just forget to look for it or where it is.  My wish for you, honest truth, is that when the darkness of the word fail engulfs you, you find that inside light inside yourself or that person who can share theirs with you until yours is strong and bright again.  Then get up, try again, and SHINE!

E for ENOUGH

Got stuck for an “e” word that could be blogged about and then it hit me.  If you toy around with a thought long and seriously, sometimes the right blog, the right topic, word, whatever—well, it hits you full force.  Not always at a convenient time or where you have the means to get it on paper or in cyberspace, but it is there and it stays until you know it is what you were “meant” to say.  And tonight, I am worn out, tired physically and mentally and emotionally, and cannot sleep nor rest until I write my words on “ENOUGH.”  This will probably cost me in terms of ever being read again, as I will use the words of the person who is the one in charge of our country, and many will find it offensive.  But I believe a writer has to be honest and have integrity if they wish to be read.  So here goes.

Yesterday, I turned on the morning news and watched young people march against being gunned down in their schools and stand up for their right to live.  Yes, live.  They did not want thoughts and prayers; they wanted our government to take common sense actions to allow them to attend school without fear of being gunned down while there.  I watched parents of children who did not survive “school shootings” plead for their children and all the children killed as they united with the young people to demand common sense reform and laws to prevent future tragedies.  Previously, I heard Trump say there would be reform.  I heard him scoff at legislators for being afraid of the NRA.  Then he went to lunch with leaders from the NRA and suddenly the reforms were replaced with thoughts and prayers again and teachers were going to be armed and already have wounded themselves and their students in their protective status.  I shake my head.

My dreams last night were filled with words like, “I love Dreamers!  I want to protect Dreamers.  I love all the Dreamers!” and Dreamers are being harassed and ICE moving at an even swifter speed to break up families and deport ALL illegal immigrants, regardless of status, criminal records, abiding by the immigration laws.  Their fate is tenuous and they are afraid.  When asked what HE decided on Dreamers, it was not HIS fault but rather the other political party’s mess.  And people in our country hide in fear of being detained, deported, and becoming victims of hate crimes.

My dreams were also filled with scenes from Charlottesville where “there were good people on both sides” as I remembered seeing White Supremacists and KKK, Neo Nazis carry torches and attack people of color and threaten them, ram a car into and kill a young woman who opposed hatred.  And I saw police stand by as guns were aimed by these good people at people of color, or ganged up on and beat the non-white people.  Of course, I could not un-see or un-hear the words of hate and racism, the flags not of our country but of Nazi Germany flying and being carried.  And then my dreams took me from there to the same person calling football players who took a knee during the playing of the National Anthem in silent protest “sons of bitches who ought to be fired!”   Weren’t there “good” people there, too?  Were they disrespectful or disruptive?  No, they were tired of people who were not white being killed, disparaged, supposedly citizens in equal standing being discriminated against by the “good” racists on the other side, the person calling them “sons of bitches” being one of them.  

I got up from my nightmare, walked around, tried to wake up fully, so I could go back to what I hoped would be a numbing sleep.  But it was not so.  I heard the person in the White House threatening “Rocket Man” with nuclear war, that his nuclear button was bigger.  I broke into a sweat again, as I had when I realized this angry and ill-informed person could get the United States literally fried because he wanted to be the big guy with the biggest button.  And then my mind worried about the detainees being held before being deported and I kept hearing about “shithole countries” and all Mexicans being rapists and murderers even as some of the most wonderful doctors, scientists, writers, artists have all come from “shithole countries.”  

  I got up again, and my head was throbbing.  I thought of the #me too people,  the blatant pride in “Pussy grabbing” and then the “I love and respect women.  All women.  I Respect women and love women.”  I had to question—like he loves the Dreamers?  Evidently since he has married three immigrant women, had numerous allegations about pussy grabbing women, makes obscene and untoward remarks about women around him from our country and others as well.  And he definitely has women admirers in Conway, Huckabee-Sanders, Hicks, Ivanka.

So an entire night’s sleep was shot.  I finished off the dream with a military parade for the esteemed person in the White house opposite images of starving Veterans who were ill and dying people from lack of health care.  Of course, I cannot forget the great WALL to be built along with an ego.  And at work today, I was tired and fraught with lingering images from last night’s nightmare.  Tonight, I will not stifle my words, my soul, my heart.

Tonight, I sit and write this with one word in mind—ENOUGH!  As a teacher, I have kicked students out for name-calling and racist remarks while teaching college classes.  I would not tolerate one person calling another a sonofabitch in my class.  I would fail any student that could not argue their point with only “it’s not my fault!  It’s them!” and then name-calling.  I would not accept money to GIVE a grade.  I would not tolerate the kind of behavior I have witnessed in a kindergartner, much less junior high age or high school age.  I refuse to tolerate such imbecility and profane and denigrating speech and words from someone who claims to “Lead” the United States.  

If at a WOK meeting you heard someone refer to another person with name-calling, you would not tolerate it.  If you were ridiculed for your dress, your heritage, your religion, your culture, you would walk out—never to return.  Well, consider the Writers of Kern a microcosm of the world stage.  The world is not putting up with this either.  But in the meantime, I, and many others, have had ENOUGH.  Money and prestige are not synonymous with character and leadership.  They are not a license to degrade and disrespect the lives of those who don’t agree with us.  It is not excusable nor acceptable to spout profanities and name-calling like third graders when something or someone displeases us.  And it is ENOUGH that not only is our country being threatened from without, but from within by a wannabe dictator/king/despot who throws tantrums to get his way and eliminates people like he throws away his KFC box when he's through.  Or I hope he throws it away!  Of course pollution and climate change and the health of the planet have never interested him.

It is ENOUGH that we have an ignorant head of state.  But it is more than ENOUGH that this person is destroying and endangering the lives of all who live here.  Children and young people should not fear in school.  The planet should not be plundered.  The ill and poor should not fear death as a constant threat.  IF  education is to continue at all, history must be taught, lessons learned, and ENOUGH caring to stop the hate, bigotry, racism.  

I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!  I’m tired of turning on the news to see who is being fired, killed, poisoned, called names, paying the most money to get what they want.  Our future generations deserve better!  WE deserve better.  Move the people of Haiti here, move the person in the White House to Haiti and let him make a shithole country great.  Ours was pretty good until he got in.

Okay—maybe tonight I can sleep.  If you despise me, so be it.  If you feel similarly, thank you.  Whatever your stance, thank you for the chance to be honest and believe me when I say I will be voting in every election held around me and in the country.  Because ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Good night—I’m done in.