At the end of last week’s first essay in my year-long Abecedarium, I committed myself to the word “breathe” for this “B” essay.  I’m not sure I am going to commit to the word for the next letter at the end of each essay, but having done so with “breathe,” I’ve spent a lot of time over these past two weeks ruminating on the breath.

The instructor at our Thursday Stretch and Balance class at the Y always begins with a few minutes of breathing exercises to center us.  I am always amazed at the impact that those few minutes of deep, structured breathing has on my physical and mental state.  Why this happens is really no mystery.  Our autonomous nervous system, which controls things like breathing and heart rate and digestion (functions that happen without us needing to consciously focus on them), has two parts.  The sympathetic system is what drives our flight-or-fight response.  It is typically characterized by short, shallow breaths and is often accompanied by release of cortisol and adrenaline.  In fact, just taking short, shallow breaths can make you feel anxious.  The parasympathetic system controls our rest and relaxation response.  It is characterized by slow, deep, diaphragmatic breathing and is often accompanied by the release of endorphins, the hormones that calm you down.

This Stretch and Balance class is at 8:00 am, so I’m not totally awake when we get there.  I’m clearly not ready for vigorous exercise.  However, after we have done those few minutes of breathing exercises, my mind feels clear, my body feels ready to go, and I’m ready for Downward Dogs and Tree Poses.  Before we transition from breathing exercises to “work,” the instructor suggests we pick a word to express our intention for the day.  Something always comes to me that fits.  It might be about calm and peace, it might be about getting things done, it might be about focus.  Whatever it is, in that moment my mind knows what I need that day.  That sort of clarity is so valuable.

Part of what I’ve been ruminating on is why I don’t do deep breathing exercises on my own.  I know that from a vigorous exercise perspective, I do way better with an instructor.  The effort I can inspire in myself pales in comparison to the effort I will output at the suggestion of an instructor.  I have accepted that, which is why I go to exercise classes most of the time.  But breathing?  Isn’t that something I should be able to do without Jane instructing me to do so?  Can’t I spend a few minutes each day deep breathing? 

The problem is shutting off my very active inner voice.  When Jane is talking us through three part or four part breathing, my mind is focusing on her voice and her direction and other mind chatter is silenced.  When I attempt to direct myself to do these exercises, the “random chatter” side of my brain has no respect for the “breathe to a count of four” side of my brain.  And before I know it, I’m breathing with shallower breaths again and my “random chatter” brain declares victory.

I’ve gone through stretches of time when I am fairly consistent with Mindfulness Meditation, which is all about controlled deep breathing.  Honestly, I’ll do it for a few days in a row and then just forget about doing it.  I have not been successful at making it a high enough priority that it becomes a must-do in my daily life.  Maybe ruminating on this publicly will make me hold myself more accountable.  (I’ve already been asked if I’ve started the Mandarin lessons on my Rosetta Stone.  My very valid excuse is that it’s under a pile of crap in the office in the house.  But once we are back home and unpacked, the accountability will resurface.  Ni hao.)

Being so conscious of the impact of breathing over these past couple of weeks has made me painfully aware of how often I am in need of a deep breath.  Many of those instances have surrounded the inevitable issues that have popped up around our home renovations.  I actually asked the project manager this week how many Xanax pills he needs a day since EVERY DAY unexpected issues arise.  He laughed.  But he never answered my question.  Trish and I continue to take turns melting down over our lack of control and desire for this to just be done.  When we saw that the sinks ordered for the bathroom vanity didn’t fit (which is holding up cutting the granite for the bathroom, which is holding up the tiling, which is holding up the plumbing), I found myself involuntarily closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.  When we saw that the HVAC guy had inexplicably left a two-inch roundish hole in the ceiling of the new bedroom (that had JUST been painted) next to where he cut the opening for the heat pump filter, I rolled my eyes—and then found myself closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.  When Trish tripped AGAIN over the gate into the backyard that has yet to be rehung, we both yelled—and then took deep breaths.  Nothing changed in the moment before the deep breaths and after, but we calmed down a bit.  We knew things would be addressed, problems would be solved, and we’d find a way to deal with the outcomes.  I’m finding myself taking deep breaths just writing this paragraph.

Think about how many times you tell yourself or someone else to take a deep breath.  I was thinking of that during a recent Zoom call with my college friends, since we often share our stressors with each other.  I think of that when I talk with my Mom and she’s dealing with stressful situations at her retirement home, or when my sister tells me about the frustrations of being on the board of her HOA.  Deep breath.  In to a count of four.  Hold for a count of four.  Out for a count of five.  Repeat.  Whether it truly helps you be in more Control or just gives you the illusion of that, it still makes a difference.

I mentioned in my last essay that Trish’s sister and husband have been kind enough to turn their home over to us while they winter in Florida and our home is renovated.  We shared the house for the first month and because they have a cat also, we kept our two in their large, finished, very comfortable basement.  It was not a hardship.  They had plenty of room.  We had a cable box.  However, I felt compelled to get up at the crack of dawn (well, pre-dawn this time of year) and go down to feed them and hang with them since we sleep upstairs.  Once Megan and Tom headed off to sunnier climes with Junior, we let our cats out of the basement.  It took a little while for them to venture forth, but once they did, the boundary setting had to begin.

The reason for this is, as anyone who has cats knows, they are the world’s potential energy police.  Any item resting above floor level—say, a bottle of vitamins on a counter—has potential energy since being at floor level is a lower energy state.  One need only convert the potential energy to kinetic energy by, say, knocking the bottle off the counter.  Once the bottle reaches the floor, it is now in a lower energy state and the universe is happy.  Cats are known to patrol the world, particularly in the middle of night, making sure all potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, bringing the universe to that more stable lower energy state.  If the item is breakable, all the better!  Breaking a glass into a thousand pieces increases entropy, also a thermodynamically favorable process.  You’re welcome.

We spent the better part of the last couple of days re-training the cats about where they could go and where they couldn’t.  No to the counter.  No to the table.  No to the Christmas tree.  No to the mantle over the fireplace.  Setting these boundaries requires consistency and immediacy.  It’s exhausting.  In case you’re wondering, we are well aware that they will go where ever they really want when we are not around.  That’s why we go around removing breakable items from high places and packing away narrow cords that seem to just scream, “Chew me!”  And by “the cats” I really mean Bridget.  Beau is a curious but generally non-destructive Very Good Boy.  Bridget is like a two-year-old with a four-foot vertical jump.

I’ve been thinking a lot over these last couple of days about how important boundaries are between all living things, how important it is to set boundaries in almost any relationship, and how hard it is to define them and then be consistent enforcing them.  So, let’s discuss that a little.

For the purposes of this essay, I’m going to define “boundaries” as “expectations of acceptable behavior.”  The boundaries we are probably most familiar with are those a parent sets for a child.  I cannot speak from personal experience from the “parent” side, but I was indeed a kid, so I can speak from the “child” side.  My parents did not have difficulty setting boundaries for me.  I am a rule-follower to the core and that, coupled with my strong need for acceptance and approval, meant that if I so much as slightly disappointed my parents, I would dissolve into tears and self-flagellate for days.  While that made for an easier time of it for my parents, it also meant that when I went off to college the lack of imposed boundaries was a problem.  It is true that you don’t know your own limits until you push past them and my college friends will readily attest to my efforts to find my limits.  I was clearly not alone in this journey.  What saved me was holding over my parental boundaries until I learned to set my own.  While I still believe I could have gotten more out of my college education (scholastically), I still managed to never earn below a B+ (although during one particularly challenging semester I did choose to take a difficult elective as pass/fail and I do believe I dropped another early on).  These were all good lessons as I learned to set boundaries with others in my life.

It is easiest to understand boundaries when there is a power imbalance, like the parent/child relationship.  Another prime example is boss/employee.  Most people understand boundary setting between a boss and their employees.  The boss sets standard expectations of behavior:  “You will show up on time and do what we have agreed you will do.  If you do this, you will get paid and the company will invest at some level in your growth.”  Bosses sometimes set other boundaries, like “you won’t come whining to me about every problem you encounter” or “you won’t talk to my boss without talking to me first.”  Boundaries are important from employee to boss, as well.  Bosses will indeed keep piling on responsibilities and deliverables until employees push back.  With the perceived power imbalance, this push back can seem like a tall order.  Employees may fear they will lose their job or be “black marked” if they push back.  I’ve got a little secret for you:  bosses most often pile work on their most valuable employees because they can depend on them.  We are just as afraid you will leave as you are that you’ll be fired.  Push back!

Setting boundaries in personal relationships is toughest of all.  In the early aughts, when I came back from my assignment in Mexico to lead the organization of which I used to be a member, I found myself in the unenviable position of becoming the boss to most of my friends.  I had to very quickly establish boundaries on our friendships and it was not fun.  I could not let my friendships influence my business decisions and most of those friendships changed permanently because of this decision.  I could not be their confidante around workplace issues; I could not favor them in decisions around assignments or promotions; I could not be infinitely accessible to people with whom I had more of a history.  I was so sensitive to not letting my personal knowledge of some people influence my thinking that I probably ended up disadvantaging them on several occasions.

Boundary setting in my most critical relationship, fortunately, has been fairly smooth.  Maybe it’s because Trish and I met later in life, when we already had been able to succinctly define our boundaries to ourselves, so we could more easily express them to someone else.  I’ve learned what she needs from me in certain situations (she likes to be left alone when she’s sick; she needs space when she’s flustered or angry; she needs to talk out disagreements quickly).  And she has learned what I need from her (get me won ton soup when I don’t feel well; give me similar space when I am flustered or angry; process and process and process any disagreement).  I have also learned the most critical boundary:  never, EVER eat the last cookie.

A while ago, I wrote an essay on toxic people.  This sense of toxicity often comes from people not respecting your boundaries.  We all have those acquaintances who want to be closer to you (or more important to you) than you feel.  It is really uncomfortable to enforce those boundaries and I admit to having been meaner than I would have liked in some situations.  Even those within your inner circle have to respect boundaries—there is a line between going along with something that wouldn’t be your choice because your friends want to do it and being miserable because you crossed an important boundary.  I often lose sight of that line, although many might say that I am just passive aggressive and need to suck it up better.  Working on that.

As with Bridget and jumping up on counters, consistency in enforcing boundaries is always key.  This is often the rub with most of us.  Sometimes you are just weary and give in.  Sometimes you are feeling more magnanimous or compassionate and don’t hold an important line.  Do the best you can.  Just as important as it is for you to set and enforce your boundaries with others, be aware of boundaries that others are setting with you.  You may rarely get the direct feedback you need but the hints and body language are always there.  Have that explicit discussion if you can.  Boundaries can become more flexible if there is a spoken understanding.  But never eat the last cookie.

In my last essay, I hinted at a need to discuss this topic.  As many of you know (and can’t escape), Trish and I are undertaking a major renovation of our house.  I promised (threatened? warned?) that this renovation was going to rule my life for several months and, thus, influence my writing.  Anyone who has taken on a project like this one knows that there are going to be unexpected twists and turns.  Trish and I, even though we’ve never been through this before, gave ourselves a little talking to about being flexible and patient before this all got going.  Well, we’re two Virgos who like things the way we like them.  So let me tell you how all this is going so far.

We were supposed to start construction around the first of October, with a duration of 8-12 weeks.  Since we are getting our kitchen expanded and remodeled as well as adding a new main bedroom suite above the garage and family room, it made sense for us to move out and let the builders just have the run of the place.  Trish’s sister and brother-in-law, who live less than a mile from our house, graciously offered us their home while they wintered at their condo in Florida.  Sounds like a great plan, no?

The first unexpected change was Tom and Meg deciding to delay their departure to Florida because they had a number of commitments here in Philly through October, November, and December.  Cohabitating was not the original idea, particularly since we have two cats, they have a cat, and any cat owner staff will tell you cats don’t mix well without a lot of patience, treats, and the occasional vet visit.  Then, the start date of the construction kept slipping.  First to the middle of October.  Then to the following week.  Then the week after that.  The plan was to start by yanking the roof off the garage and family room and framing the addition, giving us an additional week to transition to Meg and Tom’s and get the kitchen cleaned out.  The Thursday before the Monday start date we were told, “Yeah, no.  Gonna rain Monday.  We’ll start by demo’ing the kitchen.”  It was a busy weekend.

Once the kitchen demo got underway, the project manager rightly raised concerns about the plan to put only one support beam below the addition.  By the time the architect got around to looking at things and pronounce the one support beam sufficient, the framers had already moved to another job and wouldn’t be available until after Thanksgiving, three weeks hence.  Work slowed to a snail’s pace.  Finally, we had the electrical walkthrough for the kitchen, deciding to not wait for the addition to be framed out first!  Yea!  And the electrical estimate came back four times the estimate in the contract.  So, we are now at Thanksgiving—almost two months after we thought we’d be well into the project—and we still hadn’t demo’d the roof over the garage, while the kitchen was down to studs and swinging light bulbs and we were wondering if the whole project might come in at 4x the estimate.  Punch, punch, punch.

I’ve written before about needing to push yourself outside of your comfort zone to keep your coping skills sharp.  However, that is a conscious choice: choosing to do something to keep yourself from overly fearing to do that type of thing in the future.  When I was younger, that meant moving to Mexico alone for 3+ years, speaking about sixteen words of Spanish before I left.  Now, it’s making myself drive to the airport.  On a weekday.  I’ve also written multiple times on the concept of coping energy (here, here, and here).  Those essays discussed, respectively, the importance of developing reserves of coping energy, building those reserves by focusing on what you can control as well as the actions you can take, and what happens when all the wheels come off at once.  This time we’re taking another sideways look at coping:  what happens when you get a string of unexpected issues that gnaw away at you little by little and what it takes to yank yourself back to an even-ish keel.

Now, one of the really good things about the relationship between Trish and me is that we rarely melt down at the same time.  In fact, I don’t think I can remember a simultaneous meltdown.  If it has happened, I’ve blocked out the trauma.  So, we just take turns.  She’d melt down and I’d calm her.  Then I’d melt down and she’d calm me.  Fortunately, we’ve continued to follow that pattern these last couple of months.  Something would happen; one of us would freak out; the other would calm them down; repeat, switching roles.  It has taken its toll, as I wrote a few essays ago.  Once again, we have shown ourselves that either it’s not as bad as we thought or simply that we’ll get past it even if something in our plan needs to change.

Where are we today?  First, sharing a home with Megan and Tom has been an unexpected joy!  We had to work out a few things, as expected, and we’ve had a lot of fun.  They left for Florida today and I’m really going to miss them (and their cat, Junior).  I’m already meal planning for when they come back for Christmas!  Next, there was indeed a misunderstanding on that electrical estimate that was cleared up two days later.  The roof is now off the garage and family room and the addition is going up.  Electrical in the kitchen looks about done.  Are we done with the punches?  Surely not.  So far, though, it’s all working out.  Sure, it’s supposed to pour rain and gust heavy winds tomorrow and the guys assured us they would tarp the heck out of the addition.  Will there be water damage?  I hope not, but if there is, we’ll deal with it.  It will get addressed.  There will be additional meltdowns and unexpected issues.  We’re in a calm enough spot right now for me to write with some confidence.  I promise I’ll find some other aspects of this project to write about going forward.  I think you’ve read enough about my coping issues!  Until then, it’s back to reestablishing routine and building up some reserves for those next punches.

One of my college chemistry professors had a bumper sticker pasted to his office door.  It said, “It takes alkynes to make the world.” This is a chemical play on words that my science friends are rolling their eyes at and my non-science friends are impatiently thinking, “Get to the point, Sherri.”  Alkynes are organic molecules that have a carbon-carbon triple bond.  There are several alkyne molecules that are critical to life forms of various types (including us) so, yes, it takes alkynes to make the world.  Additionally, the word is pronounced “Al”—like the man’s name—“kines”—with a long “I”.  This sort of sounds like “all kinds,” as in “it takes all kinds to make the world.”  This saying is another valuable truism.

We all know this intuitively yet it is often hard to remember in practice.  When I was younger, the issue was the struggle to understand and accept myself which led me to judge those different from me as being inferior.   Of course, this was also balanced by a paranoia that they were indeed better than me.  When you get older, the issue around putting that saying into daily practice often revolves around fear and regret:  Fear that someone different from you is dangerous and/or regret that you didn’t choose that path yourself.  So, the best thing to do to uplift yourself is to diss them.

We’ve all heard the jokes that begin, “There are two kinds of people in this world.”  In my exhaustive research for this essay, I went down a bit of an Internet rabbit hole on examples of this joke.  The funniest ones, by the way, are visual:  pictures of a neat desk, for example, along side a wasteland of paper and tchotchkes with a table underneath.  I know that these dichotomies of extremes are oversimplifications, but they do often make a point.  Here are a couple that have resonated with me:

There are two kinds of people in the world: entrepreneurs and corporate types.  I could never be an entrepreneur, even though it looks really glamorous and can make you really rich.  To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be passionate and persistent to a degree I just can’t muster.  I was, however, a really good “corporate type.”  I worked well within that structure.  Entrepreneurs and corporate types often get really judgy with each other.  One is not better than the other, though!  We need both.  Without entrepreneurs, we’d never get new businesses.  Without corporate types, we’d never be able to grow those businesses to the level that they need to be to serve the community.

There are two kinds of people in the world: creative types and execution types.  Look, we all know we need both types and rarely do you find both characteristics in one person.  Creatives tend to value ideation more than execution, though, and vice versa.  It’s natural to value what you like and what you do more so than those characteristics that don’t reflect you.  And herein lies the problem.

For those of you still waiting for me to make a point, these dichotomies got me thinking about this challenge of embracing things that are new or different and finding common ground.

My regular, very patient readers know that Trish and I are starting a major renovation of our house.  When we last left our story about a month ago, I was really unsettled getting prepped for this and waiting for it to start.  While I’ll tackle stories about rolling with punches during construction later, today I wanted to talk about our living situation.  Since our whole house is basically impacted with this construction and we have two cats that are neurotic enough already, thank you, we decided to move out.  We are amazingly fortunate that Trish’s sister and brother-in-law live half a mile away and offered us their home while they winter in Florida.  I can’t even begin to describe how generous this is and my gratitude to them!  We are cohabitating this first month, since they leave after Thanksgiving, and this had led to an unexpected pleasure—getting to know my in-laws more fully than I’ve been able to during various family gatherings.

I was pretty nervous about sharing the house, particularly over an extended time period.  It’s their home and I really wanted to respect their “life flow” but know that no matter how hard we try, our presence will be disruptive.  My relationship with my in-laws is way more important than having a temporary place to live.  What I’ve found over these past few weeks, though, is that we are finding common ground even as we navigate our differences.  Here a couple of examples:

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who pack a dishwasher as efficiently as possible and those who randomly toss items in.  I’ve plumbed this territory before.  I actually brought this up during one of our preparatory discussions, wanting to understand little habits like how they loaded the dishwasher.  Tom and Trish both said, “Who cares? They all get washed.”  Megan and I both started twitching a bit and said, “But we need to be able to get as many dishes in there as possible!”  I looked at Meg with new-found appreciation and respect.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Sleeping Beauties and Price Charmings.  The Lawlor women have a special skill.  Trish, for example, can drink six expressos at bedtime and the warmth of the liquid will put her right to sleep.  Megan apparently has similar sleeping skills.  Tom and I, awake at 6:00 am to feed the cats, have bonded over their ability to fall asleep so quickly, and sleep long and loud. Clearly, our level of tolerance is beyond gallant.

There are many other examples, mostly small things, that I’ve found over the last couple of weeks that I (or we) have in common with Megan and Tom that I never knew before.  And finding those little commonalities makes me feel even closer to them.  What could have been a “family tragedy” has really been a lot of fun! (Here’s hoping Tom and Meg are also laughing…)

Finally, I have also been thinking about “there are two kinds of people in the world” in the context of how divided our nation has become as we emerge from the midterm elections.  We can blame 24 hour news channels and social media, which have certainly exacerbated our divides, but it’s more than that.  It seems like we’ve stopped seeing each other as whole human beings and just define the “other” by a single characteristic:  political ideology, race, class, whatever.  I firmly believe, though, that we all have far more in common than we realize and if we’d just take a little time to get to know each other better, maybe we’d find a way to bridge some of these divides.  I’ve written before about the dangers of making assumptions about the whole person based on some (probably irrelevant) defining characteristic.  I’ve also written about the key workplace advice I got early in my career to always look for something you like about, and can learn from, each person you meet.  That advice works just as well in our broader lives as in the workplace.  Don’t get stuck on “there are two kinds of people in the world.”  There really aren’t.  We are all just humans.

The origins of this essay come from a recent trip home to Atlanta to see my family. We were in a Shabbat service, the Saturday after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The Rabbi at my Mom’s retirement community was talking about how lopsided the Torah was at this time of year, meaning almost the whole scroll was rolled up on one of the ends.  We read a section of the Torah each week during Shabbat services and the sections are determined such that in one year’s time, we read the whole thing. A couple of weeks after Yom Kippur, we complete the annual cycle and, during the holiday of Simchat Torah, reroll the Torah and start again. The rabbi was talking about the importance and symbolism of this process of reading and re-reading the Torah every year. “We celebrate the end of the cycle,” she said, “in part because we are excited to begin a new cycle. We don’t mourn the ending because we realize that every ending is also a beginning.”

That comment struck me, in part, because the primary reason I was there was to recognize my Dad’s yahrzeit—the anniversary of his passing. We lost Dad twelve years ago, one week and one day after Yom Kippur. Recently, a good friend lost her mother and during that service, the priest talked not about death, but about transition. That resonated with me as well. Her soul was transitioning to its next phase. Her earthly life had ended; her heavenly life was beginning. Many of us continue to feel the presence of a loved one long after they have died. I feel that way about my Dad and my maternal grandmother. I always feel their presence. I don’t think of their deaths as an ending, but as a transition to whatever is next; a beginning.

As I continued to ruminate on this topic, I began to understand how broadly that thinking could be applied. Throughout our entire lives, we are experiencing endings and beginnings but we don’t necessarily see the connections. We don’t see how those endings are really beginnings and that the beginnings can’t happen without the endings. A prime example that comes to my mind was a forced work transition I went through in the mid-2000’s. I had a career path in my mind that I was trying to make happen. It just wasn’t working but that didn’t keep me from continuing to beat my head against a wall. Finally, I was moved into a different position (which was a whole lot better than just being fired). I was devastated. I thought my career was over, that I’d never realize my dreams, that I was an utter failure. But that ending was actually the most awesome beginning I ever could have imagined! The job I was moved into turned out to be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding roles in my whole career. I loved the work; I loved the people; I loved what I was learning. And that role led to my next career change which took me in a direction I never could have achieved had I stayed the course in that previous role. This was a realization in hindsight, mind you. Don’t think that I was Ms. Maturity in how I approached that transition! I ended up super happy in spite of myself, not because of any healthy attitude. But it taught me that important lesson of looking forward and not mourning what could have been.

There are so many examples each of us have on how we’ve handled endings. School transitions are a good one. Grammar school to middle school to high school to (maybe) college to (maybe) grad school to your first job. In each case, you leave something that is familiar and known and head into the Great Unknown. Some people focus on the ending—leaving friends, a routine, even just a place that feels comfortable—and struggle to embrace the beginning. Others wave goodbye to what is ending and run headlong into that beginning. I’ve written before on the fact that there is no one path to success or happiness, that what is most important is what actions you take once a decision is made or a path chosen. This recognition that every ending is a beginning is a big part of that mindset.

Personal relationships of all types follow this thought pattern as well. It has been said that people come into our lives “for a reason, a season, or for life.” This means that relationships, even very close ones, can last for a short period of time around a particular need, for a longer period of time, or throughout your whole life. It is not a failure if you part ways once a relationship has run its course. That ending will only lead to a new beginning—for each of you. Some friendships need to end, just as some romantic relationships need to end, to allow each of you to grow. No doubt it’s often very hard to see that during the time period a separation is occurring. What’s dangerous is getting stuck in the ending and focusing on the loss instead of learning to treasure the value brought by the relationship. As a wise friend once reminded me, that hole in your heart is not loss—it’s an opening. Everyone who has crossed my path over these six decades has taught me something and helped create the person that I am today. Without all those experiences, all those endings and beginnings, I wouldn’t be the “me” that met Trish. Every one of those endings lead to a beginning that kept me moving forward.

I’m remembering that now, as we asymptotically approach the start date for our home renovation. (A little math humor for my STEM friends.) The house is all packed up. I’m sitting in a folding chair in an empty living room with no art on the walls. It feels like my first apartment in my 20’s! I feel uprooted; unsettled. It feels very much like an “ending.” I know, though, that this discomfort is really about a “beginning.” Remembering that helps me find my way forward, just like it did every time I changed schools or jobs or even relationships. It’s scary when something ends and something new begins. Let the possibilities of the beginning excite you.

The first rule of writing is “write what you know.”  When I first started this blog almost four years ago (yes, it’s been almost four years), I had a lot of pent-up writing energy around the kinds of topics that kept coming up when I coached younger employees.  Now that I’ve mostly exhausted that list, my writing is inspired by whatever is going on in my life at the time I sit down to type.  Not surprisingly, observations about life always seem to tie back to those coaching lessons.  Human beings in life and human beings at work are still human beings.  The same rules tend to apply.

As I mentioned several essays back, Trish and I are embarking on a major renovation of our house and I anticipated that stuff surrounding said renovation was going to dominate my writing for a while.  There was a flurry of activity in the spring and early summer as we went through the selection process around design and then a lull as we awaited our construction date.  Well, that date is nigh upon us and for the last many weeks, Trish and I have been getting ready to move out of our house so the guys can have the run of the place.  The process has been, shall we say, unsettling.  And being unsettled is just no fun.

I’ve touched on this topic before from some different angles.  I talked about pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and the needed coping energy.  Today, as I was “leaving it all on the bike” at spin class, I was ruminating on this whole unsettled thing and, despite all my learning and growing and stuff, it still can throw me for a loop.  I’m trying to get back to a more even keel, so I’m going to write about it and you’re coming with me.

I have to begin by admitting that I clearly lead a very cushy life.  While the pandemic stressed a lot of people to the max, little Ms. Retired Introvert here settled into a very comfortable existence.  I’ve always been a homebody and the pandemic reinforced that tendency.  Adding to that the weight loss journey Trish and I went on during lockdown and finding out that I actually like to cook, I got really REALLY comfortable staying in my cozy little home bubble.  I am enjoying getting out more again, for sure.  But I always look forward to walking in that front door.  However, “walking in that front door” is different now as we live amid boxes and empty walls.  I know the valley is beautiful but all I see right now is the huge mountain in front of me that I first need to climb.

This feeling of being unsettled is manifesting in a number of ways.  First and foremost is disruption of routine.  I can’t seem to write.  My journal has sat untouched for weeks and writing these essays has been sporadic and a bit painful (particularly for my editor who has been using a lot of red ink these last months).  I don’t seem to be able to focus to read, which is another self-soothing activity.  That means magazines and email digests are piling up alongside books and that makes me anxious.  Some days, I just don’t know what to do with myself.  I’m nudgey.  And, I’m sure, annoying.  Here’s a fun example:  Trish was on the land line when the builder called on her cell phone.  Since we have been waiting anxiously for him to give us a start date, she implored me to pick up the phone and deal with the call.  Brian wanted to stop by Monday at 10:00 and I said, “Great!”  When Trish got off her call and I relayed the message, she asked why I didn’t push for a later time so it wouldn’t mess with her/our exercise schedule.  (We are, at least, desperately clinging to our exercise routine!)  I, then, burst into tears since that is how I deal with any stress or extreme emotion.  (Bassners have an extra tear duct.  We’re known for being a bit weepy.)  She tried to back track but is unsettled herself so it resulted in me stamping my foot and saying, “I’m going upstairs!”  It’s been a little rough around here.

Once I got upstairs, I tried to write.  That didn’t work.  I tried to read.  That also didn’t work.  So I slammed down the top of my laptop and went back downstairs.  “We need a list,” I said, being a good Virgo.  Since Trish is also a good Virgo, we made a list of everything that has to get done before the construction starts inside the house.  It’s still a disappointingly long list, but writing it down at least got it out of our heads.  It also gave us discreet tasks we could do, which is also a good thing for Virgos.

I’ve identified two things to get me through this unsettledness.  The first is to be present, which is a pretty good tool to get through most difficulties in life.  Know what one of the best things is to force me to be present?  When our 25 pound Maine Coon-mix cat, Beau, decides it’s snuggle time.  He will announce his presence with a forceful meow, jump up on your lap, settle his bottom on your lap and, forcing you to slouch, spread the rest of himself up your chest and under your chin.  There will be a little kneading of tummy and then he will settle in.  Your job is to hold him so he feels secure and kiss the top of his head between his ears.  That is all you are able to do with that much cat on you.  So, while that warming, vibrating (purring), heated blanket is on me, I am just present.  I think about what I want to write.  I think about what I want to do.  I kiss the top of his head again.  There is nothing better to calm you down.

The second thing I do is choose just one thing to get done today.  “Begin by giving yourself a little grace,” I say to myself.  “And choose just one thing to get done.”  Today it is getting this draft done.  I’m pretty sure I’ll get more than just this one thing done, but if that turns out to be it then that’s ok.  I think back to the stressful time periods in my life.  Some of them were time bound and fairly short, like preparing for this construction.  Some of them were open ended and exhausting.  One nice thing about being older is that I’ve known shown myself I can get through these things, big or small.  As I wrote recently, it gets better.  There’s nothing wrong with being unsettled.  It’s part of life.  It makes for good stories when you get out the other side.  Take a deep breath.  Do one thing.  Yeah, I do believe that was a coaching lesson!

I am not talking literally, of course.  Sometimes picking at a physical scab is necessary and it’s always gross, but I don’t need to write an essay about it.  I’m talking about metaphorically picking at scabs—when you just can’t let something go.  This is a huge issue for me (see: Righteous streak, mile long) and has put a strain on my marriage here and there, not to mention other relationships.  You, too?  Well, then!  Join me in a little written therapy session as I try to gain some insight into this behavior.

Here’s a typical situation:  You are having a conversation with someone that has become something of a debate.  It could be a discussion of current events, or defending a project proposal, or answering questions at meeting, or even just discussing the reasons behind someone’s behavior.  You walk away from that discussion feeling unsatisfied, that you just haven’t gotten your point across.  Often, you’ll wake up at 3:00 am and say to yourself, “THAT is what I should have said!” 

I, personally, don’t like to be misunderstood, so I get rankled when I don’t think I’ve been heard or when I can’t think of a response quickly enough to persuade my debate partner.  I will noodle over the conversation for days, replaying the dynamics and imagining my more eloquent responses.  Sometimes I will talk it over (and over and over) with someone, trying to get my words right.  Most of the time, I just turn it over (and over and over) in my head.  I spend a lot of time reworking conversations.  It’s exhausting.  But at some point, I am going to want to correct the record.

There are a number of reasons that I might pick at a scab with you.  They are all interconnected but by far the primary reason is because you matter to me.  I care what you think and how you feel about me because you are important to me.  Take that as some measure of solace when I keep nagging you about something that you’ve either forgotten about or don’t want to talk about or consider so minor that you can’t believe I am STILL picking at it.  If I feel that I have been misunderstood by someone who matters to me, I can be relentless and endlessly annoying in trying to make my points heard.  If you are not important to me, then after maybe a brief period of feeling annoyed or wronged, I will (mostly) let it go. 

This issue is trickier at work.  You want to correct the record, but in the workplace, there is often a power imbalance that makes picking at scabs inappropriate or even detrimental to your future success.  As referenced in earlier essays, I lost a big power struggle at work just before a new senior leader joined the company.  I wanted him to know The Truth (or at least my truth) but he was totally uninterested in the past.  I knew he was forming an opinion of me based on other discussions but my attempts to provide my perspective was just picking at a scab he was uninterested in discussing.  Sometimes you just have to the swallow the injustice and hope that an ally will support you at the right time.  This is why I am glad I am now retired.

I will admit that while I return to issues mostly because the other person involved is important to me, I also will continue to argue because I truly believe I am right.  If you matter to me and yet you disagree with me, I will often do whatever I can to make sure that you see the light.  It’s not about me being right.  It’s about not wanting YOU to be wrong.  This, of course, is a tricky rationalization that happens to be tightly wrapped up in the third reason I will pick at scabs with you:  my long-standing fear of being blindsided, of being rejected, and my self-doubt.  What if I’m actually wrong?  After first resisting that possibility with all my might, I will listen carefully (and usually research on the web) to see if I really AM wrong.  I like to think that after years of years of keeping those errors to myself, I will now readily admit when I remembered something wrong or just didn’t have the facts straight.  Just because I believed something to be true doesn’t mean it really was true.  I go back to my favorite Brené Brown mantra:  I’m here to get it right, not be right.

I’ve been thinking about all this because we are in the Hebrew month of Elul, the run-up to the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement).  It’s a time of significant introspection; a time to take stock.  As such, I tend to think about people I have wronged over the past year, knowingly or unknowingly, as well as those with whom I’m laboring under some misunderstanding.  It’s a time to make amends.  But sometimes it’s just not that easy.  Maybe I don’t even know that I should be apologizing.  Maybe the recipient doesn’t want to hear it.  Maybe they think they were wronged by me, but I was misunderstood.  Maybe all of the above.

Where this takes us, then, is to some thoughts on being the recipient of scab picking.  When someone is nitpicking with me, I try to remember all the dynamics running through my head when I’m the one nagging.  First is to give that person the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe you HAVE misunderstood them.  Maybe there are facts you’ve missed.  Then, truly listen to what they have to say.  From personal experience, I’ve learned it is really important to repeat back to them whatever they are saying to you.  If you don’t recite their argument to show you’ve heard them, they will just keep on picking at you until you confirm they have been heard.  If you still disagree, that’s the time to argue back.  I am well aware that there are people out there who argue for the sake of arguing or who only want YOU to hear THEM and not vice-versa.  That’s not who I’m talking about in this essay.  I’m talking about regular human beings who just want to be heard and understood and hopefully validated.  I promise you that if you can do that for others, they will do it for you.  And then maybe we can all learn a little something, turn down the temperature on all the division, and stop waking up at 3:00 am with the perfect comeback!

I remember fellow students, in high school, complaining about having to learn algebra.  “When am I ever going to use this?”  The teacher would come up with some lame example about dividing pizzas or something like that, but people were rarely convinced.  Well, I am going to do you one better:  I’m going to talk about the importance of calculus in your daily life—specifically, the concept of the derivative.  I promise that there will not be a quiz at the end.

A derivative, in calculus, represents the slope of a line tangent to a curve at a particular point.  The steeper the curve, the larger the derivative.  I real life, this means that the derivative represents an instantaneous rate of change.  Why should you care?  My thesis, today, is that we are more sensitive to a rate of change than we are to the change itself.  I find that weirdly fascinating, yet also helpful.

Take gas prices, for instance.  Gas prices dropped dramatically during the early days of the pandemic.  Most of us noticed (and were pleased) but since we weren’t driving much, we didn’t much care.  And we rarely gave much thought to a change that impacted us in a positive way, except to think “Cool” when we filled our tank for $20.  As our world started to open back up and we started driving more, prices started to creep up.  Supply and demand started to match up and prices recovered to where they were before the pandemic.  There was grumbling, since even though logic tells you that those pandemic prices wouldn’t last, we very quickly got used to those lower prices.  Then Russia invaded Ukraine and the global price of a barrel of oil shot up on fears of short supply.  (I know this is an over simplification, but I don’t think you want me diving into the details of global supply, reduction in refining capacity, and how pricing on commodities works.)  What we saw was the price of a gallon of gas rising at an extremely rapid rate.  The derivative was super large.  Now, I don’t want to minimize the impact of going from $3/gal gas to $5/gal gas on people with very limited flexibility in managing unexpected costs.  However.  For most of us, the increase in cost to fill our tanks hasn’t really changed our driving habits.  There are still plenty of people out driving around at 80 mph, heading to the Poconos or the Jersey Shore.  Maybe people have cut back in spending elsewhere, but that hasn’t really shown up in consumer spending data.  But there sure is a lot of complaining about the price of gas, because the price went up so quickly.

This concept of the importance of the derivative, of managing the rate of a change, is critical in understanding how to create any change that will last, be it in your workplace, society at large, or even within yourself.  Push too much change on people too fast and there will be swift and harsh resistance.  Meter change out at a slower rate, a smaller derivative, and the chance that the change will be accepted and internalized is much greater.  I’ll start with a scary negative example.  Hitler did not create Nazi Germany over night.  It took over a decade of careful meting out of small changes that built on each other over time.  This did not happen by accident.  He knew exactly what he was doing.  He started by recognizing how beat down the German people were after WWI and, taking advantage of the need to build national pride again, gave people little steps to take to reestablish their sense of self and empowerment.  Had he tried to go directly to “Kill all the Jews and conquer Europe!” he would have been met with swift resistance.  The derivative would have been too large.  He kept the slope on that rate of change low.

This concept can also be used in a more positive way!  I believe in the MLK Jr. statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.” Many of us may be impatient to see greater social change—especially those of us who live with negative impacts daily.  I’m well aware that progress often happens in a “two steps forward, one step backwards” progression, but progress does happen.  It has to happen at a rate that can be absorb by the larger society.  In the mid-90’s, during my years at the bench developing products for use in industrial paints, I had the chance to meet the guy from the EPA who led the efforts to reduce solvent content in these paints.  It was at a summer Gordon Conference, which were very informal get togethers on the campuses of sweltering New Hampshire prep schools without air conditioning.  There would be a topic (in this case Industrial Paints and Coatings) and people from all walks of life—government, universities, industrial companies—would get together to share the latest scientific research on the topic and play really pathetic games of basketball.  One night session, I was sitting up in the back row of the seminar room where there was a nice cross breeze from open doors.  I ended up sitting next to Jim and we started talking about the state of the industry.  He was feeling down because we were at a point in time when industry members were pushing back hard on the latest round of EPA goals for solvent content, giving him all sorts of grief about how unnecessary they felt the next stage of regulations was and how the performance of paints was going down and costs were going up from more expensive ingredients, yadda yadda yadda.  He began talking as though his entire career was worthless.  I reminded him about where we were back in 1970 when the Clean Air Act first came out and these regulations started to be created.  “Jim, look how far we’ve come!  And, more importantly, WE ARE NOT GOING BACK THERE!  The bar of minimum acceptance has moved permanently higher.”  I really do not think people would want to go back to the paints with these high levels of solvent and the carcinogenic compounds in them.  Even though industry fought him every step along the way, those regulations spurred innovations that have given us products that are, for the most part, better and definitely safer.  The changes and developments happened over decades.  And that combination of performance and safety is now what we’ve come to expect.  It’s been normalized.

Human beings seem to be naturally resistant to change.  I’m sure that is for some evolutionary reason.  The difference between people today seems to be that we have differing levels of comfort with rates of change.  While I hypothesize that this may be a fundamental difference between Progressives and Conservatives, it is also a function of who is affected by the change at hand and how.  If the change makes your life better, you’ll want it right now.  If you perceive you’ll be unaffected or disaffected, you’ll resist.  I have this annoying tendency to say “No” to almost everything when a change is thrown at me.  Trish has learned to plant an idea, let it marinate, and then come back and prod a little bit.  When I’m cranky about something, though, it’s amazing how quickly I will agitate for change.  The more unhappy a person is with the status quo, the more they will want change to happen and to happen quickly.  Waiting for someone to “get comfortable” with putting out a fire, when you are burning and they are not, is really frustrating.  And when enough people are burning, well, that’s when bloody revolution tends to happen.

Most change, though, doesn’t have to involve such dramatic urgency.  I want to leave you with that thought of the derivative—understanding that someone who seems resistant might be reacting to the rate of change more than the change itself.  Give people time, but keep nudging.  Don’t let them off the hook in accepting the status quo.  Remember, also, when YOU are resisting that you might be responding more to the derivative.  Challenge yourself on that.  We are resilient creatures, us humans.  We can get accustomed to a lot of things.  Is that good or bad?  Well, that was in the other essay.