I must admit that coming up with words (or phrases) to match the “letter of the day” in our year-long Abecedarium has become a bit of a struggle. I knew it would. Heck, I even used Artificial Intelligence in the form of ChatGPT to help me write my “K” essay.  I’ve kicked around a number of “O” words this week. Obsession. Opportunity. Options. Ownership. Obstacles. Even Onomatopoeia. I was chatting with Trish this afternoon and she uttered a phrase that pulled together my disparate thoughts: “Sometimes,” she said, “you can be your own worst enemy.”  “Yes,” I responded, “but I own it.” That’s it! That what all my thoughts this week have been swirling around. The theme I have been noodling on is how every day, life presents us with opportunities; with options and their attendant consequences. We make choices, good and bad. But we must own those consequences.  It’s what I mean when I say I’m a “no regrets” person: it doesn’t mean I don’t wish things could be different; it means that I accept the consequences of my choices and work to make the best possible outcome out of the situation.

Longtime readers know that a recurring theme in my writing is Personal Accountability. I talk about this not to lecture YOU but to continually remind MYSELF.  I need to remember that life does not happen TO me, that I always have options to sort and choices to make and that, in the end, I have to own those outcomes. (“O” is for Own Your S**t, was the alternate title for this essay.) Case in point: my trip to Atlanta to see family where I am as I draft this essay.

I grew up in Atlanta and most of my immediate family is still there. I venture south every couple of months to visit my sister and my mom. It is no secret to anyone that I don’t like these trips.  That does NOT mean that I don’t want to see my family! I very much love spending time with my sister and mom; I just do not enjoy the process of getting there and then getting home.  I do have options, though.  I could choose not to go, but the consequence would be not seeing Mom and Wendy.  That is not acceptable to me.  I could choose to go less frequently than the approximately every two months I travel there, but the consequence of not seeing them that regularly is also not acceptable to me.  What I do choose is to spend a little more money on plane tickets that 1) allow me to reasonably avoid rush hours in both cities and 2) give me a bit more comfort in flight.  I used to buy the cheapest ticket I could find that got me there and back at reasonable times but found myself mightily agitated at the fight for what little overhead space was available and sitting in seats so close to the row in front of me that my knees touch the seatback even without slouching.  The cost of the upgrade is a consequence that I choose to accept.  Another choice I make, that Wendy never can wrap her head around, is taking a 7:00 am flight back.  I do this for a range of reasons.  First, those first-of-the-morning flights are your best bet for being on time.  Second, getting across town to the airport is easiest before dawn.  Third, the Uber drivers at that time of day are serious about their job and get me there efficiently and usually quietly.  And, finally, when it’s time to go home, I just want to get there.  The consequence of getting up at 3:30 (and not sleeping well BECAUSE I have to get up at 3:30) is acceptable to me.  For my night owl sister, it would be a fate worse than death.  Options and consequences.  Doesn’t mean I always like my choices, but I own them.

We have to sort options and make choices all day every day.  Sometimes the consequences are small:  Do I go to the Good Giant and know I’ll be able to get all I need, or go to the Bad Giant (which is closer) and risk them not having something critical?  Do I have oatmeal for breakfast which I know is healthy, or a breakfast burrito which I know will taste yummy but sit in my stomach like a rock?  Do I get up and feed Bridget now, or tolerate her chewing on my elbow, walking on my head, and generally being a nudge? (Actually, I usually give in on that last one.)  Sometimes the consequences can be significant:  Do I stay in this job or make a change?  Do I marry this person?  Do I run this red light?  I know I can’t eliminate risk from my life.  I have to know the potential consequences of my choices and then own the outcome.

There seems to be something of an epidemic these days of people wanting lots of options but not being willing to accept the consequences of whichever choice they make.  That, as we’ve well established, drives me bonkers.  It can also be dangerous.  Young people make risky choices all the time, mostly because they are not aware of, or have not yet learned to think through, the consequences of their actions.  They get a little bit of a bye from me on the “ownership” piece as they rack up experience (but I expect them to learn from it).  I give no such grace to adults who should know better.  When you have experienced enough to know the potential consequences of your choice, and you make that choice yet complain about the outcome, I have no patience for you.  Own it and deal with it.  Many times when someone says, “I had no choice,” what they are really saying is “I had no other option which involved consequences that I am willing to accept.”  You always have choices, even if your only choice is to accept an outcome and deal with it.  Even not making a decision is making a choice.  Beware of people who always play the victim.  These are usually people who just want to dodge accountability.  (I certainly want to differentiate here when people are truly victimized, which unfortunately does happen.) 

While I huff and puff about the behaviors of others, however, I reserve most of my irritation for myself.  This is another of those life skills that I will never perfect and will always be trying to get better at doing.  When I am in the shower at 4:00 am getting ready for my 5:00 am Uber, I remind myself:  You chose that 7:00 am flight.  When I choose to take back roads instead of the highway (or vice-versa) and end up stuck in traffic, I remind myself:  you chose that route.  When I was miserable in my last role at work, I kept reminding myself: you chose that job; now make the best of it.  In almost every instance of something irritating or trying, once I take ownership of the choice I made that got me into that situation, I find that the emotion lifts a little bit.  At first blush it may seem easier to play the victim.  It may seem like it will make you feel better and take less energy, but it doesn’t.  Accepting the consequences of your decisions and then asking, “What can I do about this?” gives you power.

“Options and ownership” has gotten me to the happiest stage of my life.  It’s how I’ve gotten out of unhealthy situations and into healthier ones.  It has given me peace of mind.  And it ensures that I see my Mom and sister regularly.

Retirement has been a really interesting time for me.  Throughout my schooling, my mind was absorbed with academics, learning how to be a human being/quasi-adult, trying to figure myself out, and trying to fit in.  For about the next 35 years (I count grad school more as “work” than “school”), my mind was absorbed with producing and advancing.  It was a soul-crushing mixture of “now-now-now” competing with “next-next-next”.  There were lots of interesting subjects that would flit across my brain, but I really had limited time to think Deep Thoughts.  I rarely allowed myself the luxury of that time, plus if I DID have time to think slowly and deeply about something other than a work challenge, I was usually too tired to put much into it.  I promised myself that when I retired, I would use at least a part of that time to allow myself to ponder random things.  This blog is partly a result of that.  In between reading too many e-newsletters, getting my Daily Challenges on too many games on my iPad, and the occasional Facebook doom scroll session, I noodle on things.  Today, you are going to be subjected to one of those things: my increasing agitation with the word Normal.

The word “normal” can have different meanings.  One is mathematical.  A mathematical normal is a line intersecting another line at a 90-degree angle.  I don’t have an issue with that.  (“Yay!” says Trish.  “Something she doesn’t have an issue with!”)  Where I get all twisted in knots is when “normal” is used as “conforming to a standard”.  And this is where the rabbit hole of my noodling comes into play.

Most of my life I have never, in many ways, felt “normal”—as in “conforming to a standard”.  I am left-handed in a right-handed world.  I am Jewish in a predominantly Christian country.  I am a woman who worked in a male-dominated field (especially during the early years of my career).  I am a chemist who worked for an engineering firm.  I am gay in a straight world.  I am a Southerner living in the Northeast (although that one really isn’t valid anymore!).  While we all SAY that there is nothing wrong with being different, there is clearly a judgment that comes with the word “normal”.  Unstated is that not conforming to the standard is a bad thing.  And many of us non-conformists take that a step further, deciding that we, ourselves, are bad.  Unfortunately, there has been a lot of discussion around what is “normal” and what is not “normal” in our world today.  It’s used in politics; it’s used in discussing so many of the “culture war” issues; it’s used to judge almost every aspect of people around us.  It’s not healthy. 

My thesis today is that the word “normal” should not be used as “conforming to a standard” because who gets to decide what the standard is? Plus, one standard cannot apply across a diverse population in most cases.  What most of us really mean when we say “normal”, however, is “typical.”  And this is where the Theory of Relativity comes in.  (I promised you rabbit holes!)

I am a big fan of Relativity.  Special Theory, General Theory, I don’t care.  Bring it on!  While I cannot even begin to understand the math, I really like the basic tenet that everything we observe is dependent upon the observer.  A good example is the Doppler effect.  We all know what that is, even if we don’t know what it’s called.  If you are standing near train tracks and a train is approaching blowing its whistle (probably to tell you to get further away from the tracks), you will first hear the whistle at a higher pitch.  As the train approaches, the pitch gets a bit lower and as the train passes you and rides off into the distance, the pitch gets lower and lower as it fades away.  However, if you happen to be riding on the train itself and hear the whistle blow, the pitch stays the same.  The whistle is the same for both observers.  The difference is the position of the observer.  (It has to do with compression of sound waves, but that’s not important here.)  What is “normal” or “typical”, then, really depends on the individual and their perspective.  There is no absolute “normal”.

Besides being a science geek with clearly way too much time on my hands, I have learned to become comfortable with what is normal or typical for me.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t things I’m trying to improve upon (*cough* control issues *cough*).  It just means that I no longer feel the need to conform to a majority (or apparent majority) to which media and society encourage me to aspire.  That has been amazingly freeing!  Many times, particularly early in our relationship, Trish would look at me sideways and say, “You’re just not normal.”  I would get this in response to things like rearranging the dishwasher after she loaded it or singing along to TV commercials, or when she’d read one of these essays.  Now she pretty much keeps that comment to herself because 1) she has gotten used to my idiosyncrasies and sees these behaviors as “normal” and 2) she put a ring on it so she has no basis upon which to complain.

What has been more difficult (see: essay on Judgment) has been allowing other people to be their own typical selves.  As long as someone isn’t hurting themselves or others, they shouldn’t have to think or act like me, no matter how much I like how I think and act.  Just because it’s normal for me doesn’t mean it’s normal for someone else.  And I can have a REALLY hard time with that!

So, yes, my agitation with the word “normal” is directed outward towards our increasingly uncivil society, but it starts with being directed inward toward myself.  Dang it!  That always happens!  I always end up just looking in the mirror and needing to start there!  Darn these essays.  Feel free to do the same.  Try to redefine “normal” away from “conforming to a standard” and toward “typical”.  You do you.  I’ll do me.  And if we’re really lucky, we’ll all learn something from each other.

I considered many options for the “M” essay in our Abecedarium.  I thought about Meditation, since I’ve recently gotten back into regular practice and could talk about how useful it is.  Or I could have used Mindfulness as my “M” word, since that’s really what meditation is all about—learning to be present.  But I don’t want to talk about those things.  They are boring.  I want to talk about baseball.  “But, Sherri,” you say, “baseball is boring!”  And I would answer, “You are right.  But baseball is boring in a good way.”

When I was a little tomboy, I played softball for several summers.  My Dad taught me how to play, just as he taught me how to play basketball and swing a golf club (although he taught his lefty daughter how to golf right-handed which is why I don’t play golf).  Nothing could beat those spring and summer evenings in 90 degree Atlanta heat with 90% humidity, watching 8 year olds dink a softball and miss three different throws to ensure an infield home run!  Good memories!  Actually, they ARE good memories.  And that’s the point today.  I have very fond memories of watching Atlanta Braves games on TV with my Dad.  I would usually score the games because it made the time more interesting.  I even have a memory of going to a game live, sitting there with my glove in my lap, both hoping and fearing that a foul ball would come our way.

Something happened over the intervening years, though.  I strayed from baseball.  It became….boring.  The game moved too slowly.  I wasn’t passionate about any team.  It couldn’t hold my attention.  Then Trish and John Kruk brought baseball back into my life.  Philadelphia is a sports town and we Philadelphians are famously Phanatical about our teams.  Trish and I watch the Eagles play football in the fall and winter and baseball in the spring and summer.  (We cry a lot between the Super Bowl and the start of Spring Training baseball.)  We often watch football with our neighbors, always decked out in Eagles green, and usually with lots of alcohol.  Football games are an EVENT because there are only 17 games in the regular season and they all mean something.  There is lots of action and brutality and yelling at the TV—all things that make for good wholesome fun.

Baseball is different.  There are 162 games in the regular season so any given game has little meaning.  That doesn’t mean we don’t get disgusted and throw things at the TV but we do get over it more quickly.  Plus, the pace of the game is just slower.  And that’s where John Kruk comes in.  Kruker is an all star first baseman who played for the Phillies from 1989 until 1994.  He’s also a very down-to-earth guy who is just a joy to listen to when he comments on baseball.  Kruker and Tom McCarthy, the Phillies play-by-play announcer, have a comfortable on-air banter that sometimes includes talking baseball and often involves stories from John’s playing days, life growing up in West Virginia, and whatever food he can coerce the vendors from Citizens Bank Park to bring up to him.  I’d say he’s the perfect mix of John Madden, Tony Romo, and Yogi Berra.  He brought back my love of the game.  You can find us most summer nights watching the Phils, playing on our iPads, and laughing with John and Tom.  It’s a good life.

Every now and then, we wander to the park to watch a game live.  This week, we were lucky enough to catch two games in person.  Last Sunday, we went down to Citizens Bank Park to watch the Phillies take on the Mets.  My best friend and her husband met us there and he was even brave enough to wear his Mets T-shirt (although he softened the pushback from Phillies fans by wearing an Eagles cap).  You never know what the weather will be like when you buy tickets but that’s part of the fun.  CB Park is an outdoor stadium—none of this wimpy dome stuff for us stout Philly fans!  We melt in the summer and freeze in the winter like the good Lord intended!  Sunday happened to be a “melt” day.  And we were in full sun.  Thankfully, we were on the Hall of Fame level, which meant we could go into air conditioning if needed.  It was needed.  We ate.  We drank.  We laughed.  We sweated.  And we watched a little baseball.  That’s the good thing about the game.  Even with the new rules to speed things up, you just don’t miss much if you go to the bathroom.  Or go get ice cream.  Or sit and chat for a while, eating the ice cream.

Unfortunately, the Phillies were as listless as we were that day and by the bottom of the 7^th inning we’d had enough. Plus, Trish was getting dehydrated since I just can’t get the woman to drink enough water.  Afternoon thunderstorms were rolling in, the Phils were down 6-3, and it looked like it was just going to get worse.  Of course, baseball being baseball, as we were driving home Lorraine checked her phone and exclaimed, “What the?!  The Phillies are ahead 7-6!”  We turned on the radio to learn that the Phils came up to bat in the 8^th inning and pulled ahead in true Phillies style.  Not by actually “batting” of course.  There was one actual hit, two walks, and two batters who got hit by pitches, resulting in four runs.  The Phillies won (well, the Mets lost) and we missed the rain.  All in all, a good day.

Wednesday, we drove up to the Lehigh Valley to watch the Phillies AAA farm team, the Iron Pigs, play.  We REALLY went up to meet Charlie Manuel, the legendary Phillies manager who led the team to a World Series victory in 2008.  Such a nice man!  He shook our hands, signed our baseballs in script that is actually legible, and posed for a picture.  We took our seats behind home plate and settled in for a beautiful (and comfortable) night of baseball.  In spite of the fact that the bratwurst vendor hadn’t bothered to cook any bratwurst (what?) and the gluten free stand had no buns for their sandwiches (what?), it was a great night.  The guy sitting next to me broke the ice when he leaned over to his adult son and said loudly, “If a foul ball comes this way, I think I can take this lady sitting next to me.”  I, of course, gave it right back to him and a friendship with Chuck was born.  We yelled at the batters together.  We discussed our mutual love of John Kruk.  We hoped for a foul ball which never came.  And we cheered on Hambone in the Running of the Meat Products.  (Poor Hambone never wins.)

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I made some really great memories this week.  I look over at that signed baseball and think about complaining that we signed Trea Turner for way too much money (and then he hits a home run), cheering for Bryce Harper, booing the Mets pitcher when he checked the runner at first base, arguing over how short the Iron Pigs third baseman is, and sparring with Chuck about foul balls.  I think about comfortable summer evenings watching the Boys of Summer do their thing and sweltering summer afternoons with some of the most important people in my life, wondering how long the Philly Phanatic can stay in that hot costume.  And that’s what it’s all about.  Life is short.  Go make some memories.

Last weekend, Trish and I drove to the Jersey shore to help her brother put together furnishings for his new shore property.  It was going to be a “work” visit—we weren’t heading out on vacation.  However, the two hour drive there was a lot of fun because we laughed the whole way.  I think what I love more than anything else about Trish is that she always makes me laugh.  In fact, she put it in her wedding vows.  She committed to giving me a good belly laugh every day.  Five years in, so far so good.

We talked during that drive about using “laughter” as my “L” word because it is so important in our lives.  As I’ve thought about it more, I realize how important laughter is in ALL of our lives and within almost all of our relationships—certainly within any close relationship.  Trish and I have a very similar sense of humor, meaning that we find the same subjects and word plays funny.  We build off each other’s comments and the more we build, the more we laugh since that back-and-forth is funny in and of itself.  That’s why the famous Abbott and Costello skit “Who’s on First” is so funny (at least to me).  The individual jokes are good, but when you put them in a rapid fire back-and-forth it’s irresistible.  To this day, if someone says “I don’t know” I can’t resist saying “third base.”  (I just invested the 8 minutes watching the full clip that I linked to above.  Treat yourself and do the same.)

It’s not just Trish that cracks me up.  Her whole family does.  They are all born story tellers.  I learned early on to restrict fluids before family gatherings. I spend so much of the time together doubled over in laughter I risk peeing my pants!  What a gift!  And it’s not just story telling.  Even every day exchanges become comedy routines.  Here is an actual text exchange from Saturday.  We were invited over to her cousin’s house for a get-together Sunday:

Trish:  Hi Coll.  Are we lounging by the pool tomorrow—should we bring suits?  Just asking…

Coll: Yea you can bring your string bikinis!

Trish:  I only have tops…

Coll:  That’s fine—it’s just good clean fun!

Every family text exchange is like this one!  I can’t keep up!  I’m just not that quick.  But I laugh a good belly laugh every day.

People who have known me for a long time tell me I’ve never looked happier or more relaxed.  Yes, being in a healthy relationship is a big part of that but it’s the fact that so many of my relationships are filled with laughter.  We all know how important laughter is physiologically and mentally.  Laughing floods your system with endorphins, crowding out that stressed-produced cortisol and lowering your blood pressure.  It lightens you up.  In fact, just curling up the corners of your mouth into a smile and letting your eyes crinkle with them often has the same effect.  I find that if I just start a little smile, I begin to think of things that DO make me smile and then that artificial smile becomes real.  (You just tried it, didn’t you?  You’re welcome.)

A lot of people who know me think that I’m a very serious person.  In many ways, I guess I am.  I generally had to be very serious at work (if I wanted to be taken seriously) and I like to think Deep Thoughts.  And, yeah, I tend toward a bit of nerdy science humor.  I’ve always loved The Far Side scientist cartoons and Trish has promised to slap me the next time she asks “What’s new?” and I respond “E over h.”  (A little PChem humor.  Very little.)  Trish is often pushing me to be “funnier” in these essays.  Honestly, I do try!  But writing is a very serious thing for me.  Even when writing about laughter I have trouble lightening up!  But those who know me deeply know that I really like to laugh.

No one knows that better than my best friend.  Beth and I have been best friends since we met my second year of grad school (that would be almost 40 years ago now).  We have been through a lot of life together, good and bad.  One of the things that makes our friendship so lasting is that we are the queens of the inside joke.  We can just say one word or short phrase to each other and we dissolve in laughter.  (“Capodimonte!” “He had plans.” “Five minutes away!” “Pez dispenser.”  I could go on.)  What makes these lines funny are the memories they evoke.  We could even try to explain some of these jokes to you, but you’d probably just look at us blankly while we doubled over in laughter.  We are the epitome of “you just had to be there”.  Those memories, that laughter, bonds us even tighter than the tough times we’ve navigated together.  I never want to stop making memories with her and with a birthday trip to New Orleans coming up, I’m sure we won’t.  (Here’s a great SNL clip from just before Philly beat New England in the Super Bowl.  It’s for people who are from Philly and/or football fans.  Don’t watch this if you are neither.  It just won’t be funny.  Lots of inside jokes!)

There are a lot of complaints these days that people have lost their sense of humor and that everyone has gotten too sensitive.  To this I say, “Know your audience.”  When I am with my gay friends, we laugh constantly at jokes built around gay stereotypes.  We can do this because we know each other’s hearts and we’ve lived the reality.  There is some truth to the thought that you can only make certain jokes if you are part of the group.  I do not find the same jokes funny when they are told by someone who is not gay or whom I do not know well.  And it’s because I don’t really know their intent, which we touched on a bit recently.  Same thing with Jewish jokes or even female-centered jokes.  While people can certainly be over-sensitive, most of the time it’s because they don’t know the true intent of the jokester.  Yes, we need to give people a little grace and assume benign intent, but there are plenty of homophobes and anti-Semites out there who are not so benign.  And I’ve had to silently “take it” many, many times when people have told a joke in my presence and who don’t know (or forgot) that I am gay or Jewish.

Look, I can be as politically incorrect as the next person.  Mostly, I choose to express those jokes in restricted company.  I unfortunately have had to learn that “know your audience” lesson over and over again and try to remember that others are trying to do so as well.  We NEED to laugh!  We NEED to not take ourselves too seriously!  And we need to respect others and try our best to be kind in the process.  I’ve leave you with one more clip, as someone in her 60’s ready to start collecting Social Security and join Medicare.  Because we all need to learn to laugh at ourselves, too.

When we last left our Abecedarium, with the word Judgment for the letter J, I decided to switch gears a bit.  I hinted that I would find my “K” letter through the help of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.  You probably live under a rock if you have not heard about the emergence of these “large language model” AI (artificial intelligence) programs.  To explain, these LLM’s, as they are called, are programs that have read literally everything on the internet and can return “answers” to your “questions” in common prose.  Your “question” may be a prompt like “explain to me how a human eye works” or “plan a two day vacation in Seattle” or “why might I get a strange rash between my toes”.  The “answer” is developed by the LLM digging into all the text it has consumed and then building a response by predicting what the next word should be based on the previous one(s).  In other words, LLM’s interpolate.  They don’t exterpolate.  Nor do they understand the difference between reliable information and total bullshit (see: question about that rash). 

Right now, people seem most concerned about these LLM’s putting people out of work.  I have no doubt that might happen.  But tech advances have always obsoleted some jobs and yet created many, many more.  The trick, in my opinion, is to figure out how you can use something like an LLM as a tool—not how you can fight it (see:  current WGA strike).  Here’s an example my analytical science friends will understand.  Back in the prehistoric days of chromatography (a technique for separating compounds in a mixture), if you wanted to quantify the amounts of the compounds in a mixture you would do this:  take the spectrum which is drawn by the instrument on a strip chart and cut out the peaks (with scissors!) associated with the different compounds; literally weigh those cutouts; then perform mathematical calculations involving those weights and response factors previously determined.  Now (and by “now” I mean since the 1980’s), a computer program does all that for you, in addition to running the experiment.  Did that put a lot of scientists out of work?  That’s a LOT of labor that went away.  No.  It freed those scientists up to think about what the results meant in the context of why the experiment was run and to dream up more experiments.  Scientific progress sped up dramatically. 

I believe these LLM’s can be similar tools.  Since they currently can only interpolate, they can’t do the really creative stuff.  What they can do is help people like me that hyperventilate at the sight of a blank page.  So.  Let’s have ChatGPT help me write this essay.  There was no obvious “K” noun that occurred to me as I wrapped up last time, so I put in the prompt “Generate a list of five random nouns that begin with the letter K”. The program returned these nouns:  kite, key, kingdom, knife, kaleidoscope.  So far, so good.  Then I asked it to write a 300 word story using those nouns.

I quickly figured out the first new job role that will be created as a result of these LLM’s:  Prompt Writer.  Just as the people who performed, by hand, the laborious calculations to send the first astronauts into space later became the first programmers of computers that would do those calculations, I’m guessing writers will become the first professional Prompt Writers.  My initial observation of ChatGPT’s response to my prompt is that the story was 419 words long.  It’s not that ChatGPT is not that precise with math.  It was that I was not precise with my prompt.  The story did indeed include 300 words.  But I wanted a story NO MORE than 300 words.  Next, I noticed that by requesting a “story,” the tool returned what is likely the most common type of writing associated with that word:  a children’s story.  What followed was 419 awkward words about a faraway kingdom where a special little girl found a box that contained a kite, a key, and—wait for it—a magical knife that granted wishes.  Of all the common objects I could think of that I might expect to grant wishes, a knife would NOT be an intuitive choice—unless the magical wish is to maim someone.  Finally, I see this output as a children’s story that is not entirely different from many children’s stories that are out there—which is probably where it came from since the LLM “learned” from existing stories. 

I tried again: “Write a paragraph no more than 200 words in length that includes the nouns kite, key, knife, kingdom, and kaleidoscope.”  The response was another children’s fantasy story, this time a precise 185 words, but very similar to the previous attempt.  One more time:  “Write a non-fiction paragraph of no more than 200 words that includes the words kite, key, knife, kingdom, and kaleidoscope.”

The response:  “In the world of art and craftsmanship, the creative process often resembles a kaleidoscope, where unique elements come together to form a harmonious masterpiece. Just as a skilled artist wields a paintbrush, a chef wields a knife with precision and finesse. But beyond the realms of traditional arts, creativity also finds its expression in the intricate designs of a lock, waiting to be unlocked with a key. In the field of literature, storytelling is akin to building a kingdom of words, where characters and plotlines weave a rich tapestry of imagination. And just as a kite soars high in the sky, propelled by the wind, ideas take flight in the vast expanse of the writer’s mind, driven by inspiration and passion. Whether it’s painting a vivid picture with words, crafting a delicious culinary creation, unlocking the mysteries of a story, or creating a world with words, these diverse expressions of creativity remind us of the kaleidoscope of possibilities that exist within each of us, waiting to be explored and shared with the world.”

Better, I guess, but sort of a word salad.  A little freaky, though, that the topic it chose was “creativity” when I had just been saying that LLM’s aren’t really creative!  The tool is only as good as the prompt, though.  ChatGPT is trying to give me what I want.  I tried one more scary thing.  I asked it to write said non-fiction paragraph in the style of Sherri Bassner.  It should have sourced all my blog entries, articles for Lab Manager, and scientific articles, then pulled together a short paragraph in the style it assumes is mine. 

Here is the result:  ” In the realm of human experience, creativity flutters like a butterfly, drifting from the vibrant kaleidoscope of one’s mind. It takes a delicate touch, like the feathered stroke of a painter’s brush or the precise slice of a chef’s knife, to unlock the possibilities within. Just as a key fits perfectly into a lock, creativity unlocks the doors to new worlds and uncharted territories. It is in these unexplored realms that we build our own kingdoms, shaping stories that breathe life into our existence. Like a kite soaring through the limitless sky, imagination takes flight, capturing the whimsical essence of our dreams. And just as a kaleidoscope refracts light into a symphony of colors, so too does creativity refract our experiences, transforming them into something extraordinary. It is through the lens of creativity that we transcend the mundane and discover the magic that lies within ourselves and the world around us. With the intertwining threads of the kite, key, knife, kingdom, and kaleidoscope, we unlock the hidden depths of our imagination and create a tapestry that reflects the beauty of the human spirit.”

Ugh.  Please don’t tell me I write like that!  Sure, I like a good metaphor but, really!  Let’s just say I’m not particularly worried about ChatGPT obsoleting my blog.  I also don’t think the Writer’s Guild should be too concerned.  Sure, the LLM’s might take on a lot of the derivative writing.  But the writing that really matters, the writing that means something and will pay well, has to be original—and the LLM’s can’t do that.  Yet. 

When we last left our Abecedarium, we were on the letter “I”.  At the end of that essay on “Intention”, I committed myself to the word Judgmental for this entry.  That was very purposeful.  I have, no kidding, been working on an essay around “Judgment” for more than a year.  I wrote an essay.  Trish panned it, saying it made me come off as a judgmental jerk.  I edited it.  She said, “Yeah, better, but I still wouldn’t publish it.”  We went away to tour the Utah National Parks, where I hoped for inspiration.  I talked about it with our travel friends.  Got lots of inspiration, but not an essay.  I went to my college reunion and discussed it with my college friends.  Excellent thoughts and suggestions (some of which are included here) but still no publishable essay.  The fact that you are reading this means I finally got there.  Or that Trish just gave up trying to edit me to success.  I’ll let you be the, um, judge.

Let’s begin with the first half of the essay, which came out easily and has passed editing rigor before: 

“People who have known me for a long time probably read the title of this essay, snorted a little, and thought, “Well, that’s rich.  Sherri telling US to not judge.”  Let me say right up front that I know I have a righteous streak a mile long and can be super judgmental.  I’m not writing this essay to preach to you or present a “Do as I say, not as I do” checklist on how to not be a judgmental person.  I’m WRITING this essay to better understand why I tend to be so judgmental and to learn how to check myself a bit better going forward.  Now that I am retired, I can really take the time to think through things and learn from my life experiences.  I’m PUBLISHING this essay because it is my sincere hope that some of the lessons I’ve learned can help others who have more time to benefit from them than I do.

“Where to begin?  Let’s start by giving ourselves a little bit of grace.  Everyone judges, and by ‘judges’ I mean that everyone has inappropriate thoughts and makes inappropriate comments about a wide range of people who are somehow different from them.  We all do it.  All the time.  We tend to do it within the safety of our own minds, or with a group of like-minded people who know our true hearts.  Making judgmental and snarky comments is a good part of the basis of comedy.  Let’s admit it:  we crack ourselves up all the time making fun of people and making fun of ourselves.  Self-deprecating humor is indeed judgmental.  I am so glad that I grew up in a time before social media and cell phone cameras.  If even a fraction of the things I’ve said and done over my semi-adult and adult years had been captured for posterity, I would be in deep trouble.  Not that I’m planning on running for public office, but I wouldn’t want others to judge my true self based on some of that behavior!  So, let’s begin with the premise that we all judge, all the time. 

“When I asked Professor Google to define “judgmental” for me, she returned this:  ‘having or displaying an excessively critical point of view’.  Clicking on ‘what it means to be judgmental’ returned this:  ‘Judgmental is a negative word to describe someone who often rushes to judgment without reason. The adjective ‘judgmental’ describes someone who forms lots of opinions — usually harsh or critical ones — about lots of people. Judgmental types are not open-minded or easygoing.’  Ouch!  Why, then, do we do this so frequently and instinctively?”

That’s as far as I got a year or so ago.  In those previous drafts, I ventured into a discussion on why we judge others and why this is a bad thing.  Then I presented some thoughts on how to stop being judgmental.  It just didn’t work.  It was preachy and disingenuous.  So, let’s try a different tack.  We’ll call it the Ted Lasso mindset.  First a disclaimer:  I don’t have Apple TV+ so I’ve never actually watched Ted Lasso.  But I’ve read enough about the show to know this:  one of the mantras of the titular character is to be “People Curious”.  The antidote to being judgmental is to be genuinely curious about people—the whole person, not just the piece that you are judging.  When you see someone as a whole, complex human, you can put that piece that you are judging into a broader context.  Make the conscious effort to see those around you as well-rounded and unique individuals and not reduce them to stereotypes—or at least recognize that you are applying a stereotype and leave room for the thought that you might be wrong about at least that one individual.

Being “People Curious” gets at so many of the concepts I keep drilling in these essays.  It’s about compassion and grace, about humility and humanity.  It’s also about challenging assumptions, another of my big hot buttons.  I have found that asking questions about why someone thinks they way they do has a number of benefits.  First, I always find common ground.  Always.  We are just not as different as we are made to think we are.  The differences usually come down to perspective, and two opposing truths can coexist.  Second, I always learn something.  That’s where humility comes in—remembering that I’m not omniscient.  Finally, it diffuses anxiety (on both sides) by humanizing each other. 

Look, we’re never going to stop judging others.  It’s just how our brains work since making quick judgments was part of staying alive throughout most of history.  The goal is to recognize when you’re doing it, question it a little bit, and give people the benefit of the doubt.  I’m tired of judging and being judged.  It’s just exhausting.  We are all contradictions, all a mixture of good characteristics and bad characteristics.  One statement you disagree with does not make the entire person bad.  In the vast majority of cases, the “good” well outweighs the “bad”.  I choose to focus more on the good in everyone around me and, if I need to focus on a “bad” anywhere, I save that for my own journey. 

And THAT’S where I am going to stop this long, public therapy session.  Time to lighten up a little!  Instead of choose a word that begins with “K” to introduce my next essay, I asked ChatGPT to generate a list of random “K” nouns for me.  I’m going to build my next essay around that!  Stay tuned.

The instructor for our Thursday morning Stretch and Balance class always begins with some breathing exercises.  During these exercises, she asks us to set an intention for the day.  It can be a word or phrase, like “calm” or “peace” or “I feel grounded”.  It’s something you can return to during the class or the rest of the day to bring you back to that sense of focus.  This week, my intention was the word “Intention.”  I’ve been mulling over what prompted me to commit to the word Intention for this essay as I finished up last time writing on Humility.  As I downward-dogged and tree-posed, I thought about what the word Intention evokes in me, and that’s what we are going to discuss today.

The first meaning of the word “intention” is “intention as mindfulness.”  That’s what our Stretch and Balance instructor means when she asks us to sent an intention.  It means being present.  It means clearing the mind of what else you have going on and focusing on the class and on yourself in the class.  This meaning of intention came up in Shabbat services on Saturday when the rabbi minded me of the meaning of kavanah, which also means “intention”.  In this case, it was about being present during prayer that morning and not sitting there thinking about everything I had to do that day.  Mindful living has been a struggle for me for most of my life and I find myself needing regular reminders almost every day.  Like so many people I was stuck in an endless cycle of “I’ll be happy when….”  Sometimes the issue was that I was in an unhappy relationship.  Sometimes I was unhappy at work.  Sometimes I was just unhappy in general.  Instead of doing the often-difficult work of figuring out exactly why I was unhappy, I pointed to some current stressor and said to myself, “You’ll be happy when this stressor has passed.”  There are times, of course, when that was kind of true.  Maybe I was preparing for a big presentation at work or I had a big project at home that had to get done.  Anything that threw me off of my preferred schedule was a stressor and when I got past that stressor, I was indeed happier.  For much of my life, though, that stress relief was only temporary.  The niggling discomfort would bubble up again and I’d do a quick search for the next near-term stressor that I could blame.

There were times, though, that I did dig a little deeper, when I directly faced my unhappiness at work and, much later, the issues that were leading me to make really bad choices in my personal life.  Sometimes I needed professional help to keep me focused on what the real issues were; sometimes I just took a deep breath and made myself face it because I just couldn’t ignore whatever “it” was anymore.  And that’s what brings us to the second meaning of “intention”—“intention” as “purpose”.  When the rabbi discussed kavanah on Saturday, she talked about “intention” as being present and mindful, but also in its sense of “purpose”.  To do something, anything, with intention means to give it your full attention (as above) and to really know why you are doing it.  There is an outcome expected with an activity.  What is it?  And are you moving closer to what you want to achieve by doing that particular thing?  When I’m in Shabbat services, it’s about a purposeful reflection on my life.  Am I living the way I want to live?  Am I embodying the person I want to be?  Am I being the partner I want to be?  How am I doing at meeting my own expectations and where should I be putting in more effort?  This is NOT a performance evaluation.  It’s a gut check and a reset.

Intention as purpose has become way more important now that I’ve retired.  Those approaching or just entering retirement often talk about “what’s my new purpose?”  Part of that angst is driven by decades in the professional world where your efforts are geared toward the goals set out in your annual objectives or bounded by specific deliverables.  Your purpose in retirement can be similar or totally different.  Some people get involved in community work that has similar deadlines and specific deliverables and I bet that feels both comfortable and stressful.  Others focus on family needs, like babysitting grandchildren or caring for an aging parent.  To a certain degree, though, we all start to face one particular sense of purpose:  now that I have the time to really focus on it, how can I become the sort of person I’ve always wanted to be?  How can I live a life of kindness and compassion toward those around me, be they family, friends, or strangers?  What does that look like on a daily basis?  What does “achievement” look like?  Am I doing enough?  What, exactly, should I be doing?  What is my sense of purpose?  I don’t have a lot of guidance on this one, partly because it’s an individual journey but mostly because I’m still grappling with this myself.  I feel like I should be doing “more” but I don’t know what that “more” is nor why I haven’t been able to articulate it.  So, I keep going to Stretch and Balance and, occasionally, synagogue and I try to be mindful and present and purposeful and figure it out.  What I end up doing is writing a lot about grace and compassion toward yourself and others.  And that bring us to the third meaning of “intention”:  intention behind actions and words.

I do not want to wade into the Culture Wars here, but I am going to make some observations on what I see in the world around me.  I think most will agree that we seem to have lost some sense of civility as of late which has only been intensified by fear of the “other”.  These feelings have been exacerbated by the ranting of pearl-clutching of public figures.  It honestly pisses me off that in the name of gaining power and donations, members of both of our main ideological camps try to demonize, dehumanize, and divide us through fear.  That’s why I write so much about grace and compassion, about giving people the benefit of the doubt and assuming a benevolent intention.  I’m not going to give examples here because whatever I choose will be triggering to somebody and, honestly, that’s part of the problem.  Let me just describe what I try to do.  If someone says something that I find offensive or does something that I find inappropriate, I try to first assume a benevolent intention.  I used the example in previous essays about aggressive or distracted driving.  Sometimes someone is being an ass, yes, but most of the time they are not.  In any case, there is usually not anything I can do about it. I can choose to assume a positive intention and move on or I can assume a negative intention and seethe.

I’m not saying we should totally let people off of the hook when they say something inappropriate or even offensive.  I’m saying we should first assume benevolent intent but then do our best to help the person learn from the incident.  If they refuse to accept that they should rethink their behavior, then cancel away! But if their infraction was unintentional and you can help them grow a little, give them that chance.  Assume a positive intention.  Give them a little grace.  And try not to be judgmental.

I had been so excited to write this essay!  I knew I wanted the word Humility for the letter “H” since I started this Abecedarium.  I have felt that I finally “get” the concept of humility, something that had eluded me for much of my adult life.  So why have I struggled these last couple of weeks to figure out how I want to approach the topic?  The irony has not been lost on me that I have become so proud of my obsession with humility.  There is a reason that hubris is one of the seven deadly sins.

I am writing the first draft of this essay on the morning that it is due to publish—that’s how much I have been struggling with this topic.  I decided to do what I often do when the words don’t come easily:  I sat down at the keyboard and started to type, trusting in the process that the words will come.  (Technically, that’s not totally true.  I started The Process in the shower this morning which is where I usually start pulling thoughts together.  Thank goodness I don’t write for a living.  Our water bill would be enormous.)

I wrote before about the importance of humility in an essay entitled The Most Important Leadership Quality.  In that essay, I talked somewhat about my evolution as a leader and what I learned to value in a leader.  Those lessons are just as relevant—if not more so—to our broader evolution as human beings.  I’ve been thinking about all the times in my life that humility has smacked me in the face.  Time and again, I’ve gotten just a little too proud of myself and the Universe “took me down a peg”.  At least, that tends to be how we refer to it:  being taken from a higher level that we thought we were on to a lower level that is more representative of where we are in reality.  When we talk about being “taken down a peg,” this “level” we are thinking of means something along the line of our personal development or achievement.  I remember when I was first promoted to the Director level.  I was so proud of myself!  But what I was proud of was the title, to be honest, and not the effort I put in to get there.  Many thought I hadn’t put in the effort or earned the title.  When I look back now at what that job entailed and my knowledge of what I had to do to be effective in that role, I can tell you “they” were right.  I had no idea what was really required in that role.  I learned as I went, as most people have to do, but that initial hubris came back to bite me.  I learned the hard way that I couldn’t grow until I accepted that there was so much I didn’t know that I didn’t know.  I needed to be humble first to be open to learning what I needed to learn.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about humility a little differently.  Being humbled isn’t about being taken DOWN a peg.  It really is about being boosted UP a peg.  The endpoint is something like enlightenment or true understanding but we’ll never get there.  The goal is to keep moving closer.  To me, being humble is all about remembering that I am a flawed and beautiful human being, surrounded by other flawed and beautiful human beings, and we all need constant grace and understanding.  The visual that I have when I think about being humble is that of a bowed head.  Don’t think that this bowed head is about shame!  If anything, it’s about deferring to a higher power.  It’s recognition that I am not better than anyone else or more enlightened or smarter or anything.  I am just trying every day to be a little bit gentler toward myself, toward other humans, and toward the world.

I had a recent example of humility that I must share in the name of honesty.  My regular readers suffered through months of the ups and downs of our recent home renovations.  The grand finale of that months long process was The Great Bathroom Sink Fiasco.  I put the blame squarely on the builder who, I reasoned, should have not ordered sinks without checking that they would fit in the vanity we had purchased months before the job even started.  In my Corporate Smugness, I suggested that after the job was complete that Trish and I sit down with the builder and project manager and have a “Lessons Learned” discussion like we did after big projects at work.  My hubristic self figured I could teach them something about their work processes because clearly my first time through a project like this trumps their decades of experience.  We discussed the Sink Issue and Brian gently reminded me that he ordered what we had put on our spreadsheet.  OMG, I totally forgot about the spreadsheet!  At the suggestion of Trish’s brother, who has built numerous homes, we used his spreadsheet template to capture the details on the myriad items we picked out for the renovation—everything from light fixtures in the kitchen to flooring to pulls on the cabinets to faucets and, yes, the sinks in the bathroom.  We picked out standard sinks at John’s suggestion.  We never thought to check the specs on the vanity when we bought it.  We had no idea that we even needed to think about that!  Brian just bought what we had spec’d out.  This lovely man STILL shouldered the blame, saying that even though it looked like we had thought through everything, he should have thought to the check the vanity.  I was mortified!  Here I was, all self-righteous in my loading blame on him when it began with what we spec’d out.  The real lesson learned?  Don’t forget to look inward as well as outward.

Even just writing that story makes me flush with embarrassment, but humility is not about embarrassment just as it’s not about shame.  It’s not about “you should have known better.”  It’s about “I’ve learned something.”  Each time you are humbled, ask yourself what you need to learn from the experience.  I am humbled in some small way each day.  If I can manage to learn a little something too, then I am getting closer to that unattainable goal.  It’s all about Intention.  You know I am fond of quoting Brené Brown on this one:  I’m here to GET it right, not BE right.

I have this mental struggle that I go through every weekday morning.  I am a “morning person” but that doesn’t mean I like to get up.  I know, however, that I do my best thinking, my best exercising, my best anything before lunch.  If there is something I want to get done, I need to get myself out of bed and get moving.  But I like being in bed, especially our new comfy bedroom.  So, I have a mental discussion with myself.  Since most days of the week Trish and I go to the Y, this mental discussion usually involves the workout of the day and how much effort I am going to put in.  And the gist of the discussion is that I look to give myself a little grace.  I say to myself, “Self, just go.  You don’t have to push yourself super hard today.  Keep the gear moderate in spin class.  Go for low weight and higher reps in the weight room.  You don’t have to push hard.  Just go.”  Giving myself a little grace lowers that bar of activation.  I get up; go to the Y; and, usually push myself to a decent level of effort.

Giving myself grace has gotten me through the most difficult days of my life.  Any time I’ve felt overwhelmed by what is in front of me, I have found that taking a breath and giving myself permission to just show up and do my best somehow takes the pressure off and gets me moving.  In most cases I ultimately do strive for a higher level of performance, be it in the gym or the meeting room, or the social engagement that I know is going to suck energy out of me.  Giving myself a little grace paradoxically allows me to push forward more easily.

Take writing, for instance.  Writing either flows out of me or it doesn’t.  And by “writing” I mean the act of sitting down at the keyboard and translating my thoughts into coherent prose.  There is no in between, nor is there any forcing it.  Since I do not make my living writing, I have the luxury of writing when it feels right vs. needing to push the craft every day.  However, I still have deadlines.  I wrote the first two paragraphs of this essay and then stopped.  It just wasn’t flowing.  I decided to give myself grace, knowing that I would continue to “write in my head” until it felt right to put words to page.  After playing some games on my iPad, taking a shower, and starting a load of laundry, the rest of the essay flowed out.  I write in my head all the time.  I am constantly observing life around me, thinking about how certain events or interactions can inspire an essay or article.  I’ve been kicking around ideas about “grace” for two weeks.  But it wasn’t until I hit a block this morning, and then more purposely noodled on the topic, that it all came together.  Experience tells me it will come.  I just needed to give myself the space; the time; the grace.

As important as it is to give grace to yourself, it is important to give grace to others.  No where else has that become as issue these days more so than while driving.  Bring up the topic to almost anyone and you’ll hear some version of this:  “People forgot how to drive during the pandemic.”  What most of us mean is that it seems like people are more in a hurry and drive more aggressively and more distracted than they ever have, which makes driving more stressful and dangerous.  (Note that the problem is always other drivers.  Surveys indicate that about 80% of us believe we are above average drivers.  George Carlin said it best: there are only two types of drivers out there—maniacs, those who drive faster and more aggressively than you, and idiots, those who drive slower and more cautiously than you.  You are the only perfect driver.)  Regardless, if you push the question, most people distill the problem to something like this:  “People have forgotten how to be civil to each other” or “People have forgotten how to act around other people.”

I agree with these thoughts and will take it one step further:  people have forgotten how to give each other grace.  That person tailgating me?  Maybe they just got a call from an elderly parent that they’ve fallen and need help, or they are late picking their kid up from an activity and are worried about them waiting alone.  That person staring too long at the green light before moving?  Maybe they are thinking about the bad news a friend just shared with them or they are really tired and zoned out because their newborn kept them up half the night.  The idiot swerving in and out of traffic who just cut you off?  Yes, maybe they are just a maniac or maybe they are trying to get to the hospital because their wife just went into labor.  It doesn’t even have to be anything dramatic.  We all have distractions that challenge our focus for a few seconds or we tend to drive a little too close to someone even if we are not trying to hint to them to speed up.  My point is to don’t automatically jump to the “they are an idiot/maniac who has insulted me and singled me out for aggressive/bad treatment”.  Yes, there are idiots and maniacs out there and there is not a whole lot you can do to affect their behavior.  But maybe they are not.  And giving everyone a little grace and being a little patient improves the chance that we’ll all get home safely.

Of course, lack of civility is a problem exemplified much too often these days.  Because of fear and/or misinformation or poor assumptions we tend to believe the worst in others first.  I think we all need to take a few deep breaths and give everyone a little grace.  Grace is all about forgiveness, compassion, and above all humility.  We can all use a little more of that.

When we last left our Abecedarium, we were discussing how this eons-long house renovation required a lot of endurance from Trish and me.  I left you with a bit of cliffhanger on the letter F—that our ordeal was so difficult because it was an “FFT”.

To explain this essay, I am borrowing shamelessly from (but with direct attribution to) Brené Brown and her decades of research into shame, vulnerability, and the power that comes from living an authentic life.  Hopefully, I will do her work justice and not end up with a “cease and desist” order.  I first heard about the concept of an FFT in the very first episode of her Unlocking Us podcast.  As with most of her concepts, the articulation hit me like a ton of bricks because it helped me wrap words around something that I kind of knew but did know how to describe.  I encourage you to invest the ~40 minutes and listen to the episode here.

An FFT is a “F**king First Time”.  We have all navigated FFT’s throughout our lives.  You can’t avoid them, even if you rarely leave your home.  Neither Trish nor I have ever undertaken any serious home renovation.  We had each contracted for little-ish projects here and there, but this was big.  This was four months of construction that literally and figuratively trashed every room in the house, sent us into exile since there was no way we could stay in the house, and put us on a rollercoaster of excitement, fear, disappointment, ecstasy, and exhaustion.  We didn’t know what we should be doing; we didn’t know if our expectations were realistic or not; we didn’t know when we needed to push the builder and when we needed to nod knowingly and say, “this is what happens, right?”

What makes an FFT so difficult?  Well, as Brené says, it’s the ultimate in vulnerability and no one likes feeling vulnerable.  Being new at something is really hard.  You are afraid of messing up, of being taken advantage of, of looking foolish, of failure, of simply having made a big ole mistake.  An example comes to mind that most of you reading this will probably relate to experiencing:  the first time you used the Uber app and summoned a ride.  My Uber FFT was probably in Atlanta since that is my most common destination in which I don’t either rent a car or have a means of transport.  I needed to get from the airport to my sister’s condo.  I had downloaded the app and “practiced” as much as I could without actually requesting a ride.  I was afraid of what I didn’t know, such as “what happens AFTER I hit the button to request an UberX?”  I was afraid I would do something stupid like not know where to stand or go to get into the wrong car.  I wasn’t sure whether to sit up front or in the back (in the early days, either was acceptable).  How much small talk should I make?  The one thing I wasn’t afraid of was being kidnapped or getting into an accident.  Maybe I should have been, but my fears were dominated by ME doing something stupid, not the driver.  I remember my heart just pounding when I hit that “request” button the first time.  I remember nothing else about that first ride—just my own fear of messing up and looking stupid.

Probably the biggest FFT of my life was when I moved to Mexico.  Scariest thing I’ve ever done.  I moved down there alone, for a job that was ill defined and probably destined to fail, and couldn’t speak more than three words of Spanish.  Poorly.  Upon reflection, I am glad that I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  I had some difficult times, to be sure, but it was also the richest, most wonderful experience of my life.  FFTs are like that.  The scarier it is, the more rewarding the results.  This is why it is actually good, in my opinion, to seek out FFTs.  Of course, sometimes they just choose you.

We all share an example of an FFT that chooses you and this one is a biggy—the COVID-19 pandemic.  None of us have navigated anything like it. (I am assuming that none of my readers were alive and aware of things during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918.)  We had no freaking idea what was going on, what we knew and what we didn’t know, whom to trust, even how to truly protect ourselves.  Memories of those early days are probably fading and, since there has (and continues to be) an enormous amount of Monday Morning Quarterbacking over national and local response, we probably have forgotten how scary those first months were to us all.  I’ve glanced back over some of my journal entries from those days and it’s enlightening.  In some ways, I was way overreacting.  In other ways, I was way underreacting.  Regardless, there was a lot of emotion and discomfort and fear.  Classic FFT.

While the example of the pandemic is an extreme one, since there was so much we could not control as individuals, it is really important to push through FFTs when you come up against even a “small” one.  Since “being new is hard,” as Brené says, it’s easy to convince yourself to just not try new things.  But if you stop trying new things, stop pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, you stop growing and stop living.  You don’t just stay static; your world starts to constrict around you.

Since we all have to tackle FFTs, large and small, it is helpful to have a strategy.  Brené gives us three steps and I encourage you to look up her more in-depth treatment.  First name it and normalize the feeling.  Say to yourself, “OK, this is an FFT.  It’s all right to feel nervous.”  Naming it gives you power.  Second, keep it in perspective:  this isn’t going to last forever.  “I will get through this thing.”  Finally, put a reality check on your expectations.  You won’t be perfect at something new.  You don’t HAVE to be perfect.  Do your best.  If you do it again, you can get better.  But do it.  And give yourself a little grace.