Self-Management

by Lee Sinclair

Self-management seems to have fallen out of style.  For some illogical reason, we have come to believe that we can improve our lives and the world we live in through changing or manipulating external events and other people.  Even more illogically, we think it’s easier to change external events and other people than it is to change ourselves.  Well, perhaps it is, but only because we’ve lost the ability to manage ourselves.  The truth is, the only thing we have any real control over is ourselves and the choices we make.  We can’t control what happens to us or the behavior of other people.  Yes, our choices can make something more likely to occur.  But we can not control results.  So our focus should be on what we can control—ourselves, our choices, our behavior.

In order to effectively manage ourselves, we need to be self-aware, that is, to have adequate knowledge of ourselves and our behavior.  But we spend so much time automatically and unconsciously acting or reacting while thinking about other things we’re seldom aware of our actions.  We are a preoccupied society.  We think we’re aware until we start paying attention to what we’re really doing or, even more revealing, keeping a log of our activities.  A written account exposes the truth, and we are usually amazed by it.  Do I really watch that much TV?  Or spend that much time on the Internet?  Did I really fritter away that much money on impulse and on stuff I don’t care about?  Do I really waste that much time on inefficient solutions, unsolvable problems, or things that don’t matter to me?

So the first step is to create a current and accurate picture of who you are and how you spend your time.  Not as a self-judgment, but a simple evaluation.  That still takes a whole lot of honesty.  And you need to look at all areas of your life and from different perspectives.  Who you are is a combination of what you do, what you think, and what you feel.  The specific information you need is what you do, how you do it, when you do it, where you do it, and why you do it.

After you gather the information, you evaluate it by using categories, grouping similar activities, and looking for patterns.  Diagrams, grids, or charts can be used to break down your life, using subdivisions such as work, family, social life, and recreational, creative, and educational activities combined with the subdivisions of physical, emotional, and psychological needs.  Gather and evaluate the necessary information in whatever way best suits you, as long as it gives you a clear enough picture of yourself and your behavior.

Once you know yourself, you can determine what areas you’d like to change, what goals and values are important to you, what habits you’d like to modify or discard, and what new habits or skills you’d like to add.  Of course, that’s easier said than done.  Any change is difficult and takes effort.  We’re comfortable with what we’re doing, even if we’re not particularly happy about it.  We also feel “better” when we’re doing things we’re already good at.  Learning something new can make you feel really inept and stupid.  But people who want to excel spend most of their time working on areas where they are less proficient and on learning new skills, rather than practicing what they’ve already mastered.

Habits are particularly hard to change, partly because they’re ingrained patterns of behavior and partly because we usually don’t want to change them.  So unless we pay attention to what we are doing, we’ll fall back into the old habit pattern.  And more often than not, we want a different result but we don’t really want to change the habit that created the result.  We may want to lose weight, but we don’t want to change our eating habits.  At least not permanently.

Sometimes we won’t be able to change our behavior until we reexamine and change the belief that causes it and address the fears behind it.  Frequently, that belief arose from an old situation that was either misinterpreted or no longer applies, so the belief needs to be reevaluated based on updated knowledge and your current situation.

The reality is we already know all these things, but we probably won’t make much use of the knowledge.  We’ll continue as we are, only changing when forced to by other people, external circumstances, or serious negative consequences.  Essentially, we have fired ourselves as our managers—and deservedly so, given the bad job we were doing.  But then we gave that job to no one in particular, to everyone and everything else.  Our lives have become someone else’s responsibility, someone else’s fault.  We need to rehire ourselves, and this time provide more training and support, so we’ll do a better job than before.

The consolation is even one small change can make a huge difference in our lives.  Since everything is interconnected, a change in one area has a ripple effect which expands into every other area of our lives, continuing outward and changing our external world, as well.  So start small with a pebble or even a grain of sand, if that’s all you can manage.  It will make a difference.

You see that tiny grain of sand, the one right next to the giant, immovable boulder.  That’s the little bit I’m working on right now.

Also posted on my Sinclair Stories Blog.

Irv & Sharon’s Excellent Golf Adventure…

By Sharon Tillotson

As one ages one has opportunities for extraordinary experiences, and I’ve had a few. It has always been a sense of wonder to me how often these experiences come as a result of some heartbreak, and the extraordinary adventure of the past few weeks was no exception.

My brother Irv lost his wife Heather to cancer in November. At the service he mentioned he was going to wait 100 days to take care of business and then go on a golf vacation. Around Christmas he called and said our brother Don, a scratch golfer, would accompany him on the first part of the trip, which included what some have called the best golf course in the USA at the Bandon Dunes golf & resort complex. Don would then head back home and Irv would continue on south along the Oregon and California coasts to San Fran, veer off mid California to Las Vegas, and head south before returning back home.

A couple of days later he called and said Don couldn’t make it after all, the Bandon resort and golf had been prepaid and would I like to take Don’s place. It has been almost five years since I gave up my car and moved into the heart of the city to embrace a pedestrian life, and I had seldom had a chance to golf. I took the time to think carefully for, oh, about 2 seconds, wondering if I could even swing a club anymore or keep up the pace Irv had set out, before shouting a resounding, “I’m in!” After all, my brother is 6 years older than me and outside of the Boomer demographic by a couple of years, surely I could keep up.

Through a comedy of subsequent discussions over the next few weeks, my accompaniment extended further and further into the trip until at last it was determined he would drive me home to Vancouver BC before going home to Edmonton.

We departed Vancouver on March 1 and found everything from horrendous weather to hot and dry, from pretty bad golf to pretty good (often on opposite days to one another), but there was not one experience we would have traded. Irv had laid out the itinerary and I was the travel planner, booking the accommodations and tee times.

We visited the Napa Valley where we had a fabulous lunch at a rural diner; Fresno, Tehachapi and Needles where we golfed; Laughlin where we made a bit of money; Lake City Havasu where we walked the old London Bridge; Yuma Arizona where we visited our sis-in-law at her and my younger brother Wayne’s pride and joy winter home and slipped over into Mexico to buy vanilla and brandy; the Sedona area, the only destination request yours truly made, where we golfed and toured a little (Flagstaff at 6500+ft, the old mining town of Jerome at a similar altitude); and Vegas where we threw away a bit of money. After that we headed north through Salt Lake City and cooler weather. On the way home we travelled through four states in one day (Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington) and were still able to take an hour or so in Baker City Oregon, a genteel historical city formed during the gold rush. We took the opportunity for one last round of golf in Kennewick Wa, then there was no delaying and we deadheaded home.

Along the way we discovered a few things about each other. I learned numbers were significant for Irv – I hadn’t known that about him and it was quite cute to watch him. When Heather was failing, I despaired about my brother – I didn’t think he had ever so much as boiled water before. But being a very curious sort, he surprised us by embracing the process of cooking. His daughter came out to help her dad take care of her mom and together they cooked many meals. He has always been a quick study and watched in wonder the process involved. In those 100 days of early grief he called a few times to say he had made a meat loaf with 12 ingredients, banana loaf with 7, orange loaf with 13. In all he was successful and I now know he will do just fine in that department. He has maintained a beautiful singing voice and has a mature enough attitude about death that on St Patrick’s day he sang ‘When Irish Eyes are Smiling’ to Heather, who was Irish through and through on both sides.

We shared meals and memories… and oddly, a few cross words. I have always been the mediator in the family. I could never stand fighting, perhaps because I was the sixth of seven children and the baby sis to all but one and saw plenty of sibling rivalry. I would do anything to make the shouting stop. Sometimes I hid away. I did the same thing in my marriages, but our couple of little tiffs showed a measure of maturity in the matter which pleased me.

Heather was an artist and we scattered some of her ashes on a surreal day at Cape Sebastian, Ore, at the point at which one of her paintings was inspired. There is an amazing story behind this that shall be saved for another day.

I did manage to keep up the pace. 7000 km (4350 miles) in 19 days, 8 rounds of golf, most often travelling another 5 to 7 hours to the next destination. These old Baby Boomers + have still got it and we are well pleased with our adventure…

Though I know I have matured with age, and even though I have a great faith in God and our everlasting soul, I am always affected profoundly by the loss of a loved one and always regret not having more time to spend with them. We started with seven siblings, lost my only sister at 41 and my next-up bro a few years ago. My baby brother Wayne, who was my best friend as a child and had only two winters in his beloved Yuma, left us a year ago last summer. There are now me, Irv and two yet older brothers left, none closer than a seven hour drive. We don’t get together as often as we used to, but I know we will make the attempt. And I know it will never be enough…

Story also posted to the Red Room and The Storyteller blog

Right of Way

Right of Way
By Nell Gavin

The first time I thought about right-of-way was in Chicago after a huge snowstorm in January, 1979. Most public transportation was at a standstill or a crawl, so I walked. The snow was about four feet high on either side of a narrow path that went raggedly down the sidewalk. The path only permitted one person to walk through at a time. If you met another person walking toward you, one of you would step aside, perched on the snow, and give the other the right-of-way. If multiple persons met each other head on from both directions, there was an elaborate exchange where this person would step aside, and then another would walk straight through. Then the next person would step aside – but there was no particular order, and the sequence did not involve taking turns, such as first north, and then south. The only thing that was clear was that we all knew who should step aside. And the correct person always did, because everyone always agreed and continued on without further thought.

Everyone knew immediately who had the right of way, but the rules weren’t clear. This isn’t something people discuss amongst themselves, but everyone knew whose turn it was to walk, or to step aside. How did we know when we didn’t know WHY?

I did a lot of walking in a lot of snow that winter, so I had plenty of opportunity to give it a lot of thought. It wasn’t gender. Sometimes I knew I had to step aside for a man, and he knew it too. It wasn’t age, because sometimes I stepped aside, and sometimes the older person did – and both of us did this without thinking.

Then, walking through four feet of snow got to be somewhat tiresome, so I began to conduct Experiments to amuse myself. I was determined to crack the code for Right-of-Way. So, I walked. When I approached a person I knew I should step aside for, I did not. What would they do? Who were these people I must pay deference to, and what did they all have in common?

It didn’t take me long to figure it out. I am 5’10”, and female, so I was uniquely qualified for the experiment. The important issue is height. The taller person defers to the shorter person, regardless of age or gender. This explained why I so often had to defer to men, and they knew it. If both are of the same height and female, they smile and express delighted confusion and do that “shall we dance?” motion while they maneuver past each other at the same time. If both are the same height and different genders, the male steps aside for the female.

I don’t know what two men of the same height do. Maybe they both make gallant gestures about letting the other go first, as if they were both picking up the check in a restaurant. Maybe they do the alpha dance of, “Mess with me, and I’ll deck you.” Someone will have to tell me.

What happens when you break the Right-of-Way sequence? I wondered. People get upset and resentful, I learned. I made them that way with my insistence on figuring it all out and refusing to step aside, but it was for the greater good, I figured: knowledge. I also learned about resentment firsthand when I passed an Asian man day after day, who always insisted on passing on the left. I was tempted to say, “This is not Japan! We drive on the right in America!” I never did, though. When I saw him coming, I knew he would pass on the left instead of the right, and after a while it got to be easier to just let him. Maybe someday an alpha male of the same height would deck him for me. And deservedly so, I thought, resentfully upset.

So, mystery solved. Yet there were more right-of-way mysteries, I learned. I moved to Oklahoma, and in Oklahoma – or at least in Tulsa – people pass on the left. The first time it happened, I thought the person who did it was preoccupied or personally ignorant. Maybe that person was messing with me, the way I messed with those people after the snowstorm. Maybe the person was English.

Then I kept seeing it wherever I went. Men and women. Shorter and taller. There was no reason behind it, but people in Tulsa pass on the left. Even the groceries stores have their entrances and exits on the left, as you face them.

A good friend of my at a job I worked at passed me in the hall, and did that. I stopped her.

“Why did you just do that?” I asked her. It wasn’t a challenging question. I just wanted her to tell me.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Pass me on the left instead of the right.”

“I have no idea,” she told me.

“You drive on the right side of the road, right?”

“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.”

Nobody ever explained to Tulsans that you walk on the right. Or else someone who was English or Australian or Japanese (or some other nationality where they drive on the left) was influential during Tulsa’s development, and made people in Tulsa believe this was the norm. Or something. This whole walk-on-the-left thing apparently became as natural to Tulsans as the height thing was in Chicago.

Okay, so then this. I’m turning left onto a road, and another car is about to turn right onto the same road. The car that is turning right ALWAYS has the right-of-way, so I wait. The driver waves me through. So I’m all, “What? Why did you just DO that?” I naturally think that the driver is indecisive or insecure, or is on the phone, or has some other reason why he will let me go first. No problem.

But then it happens again. And yesterday, when I was the car turning right and had the right-of-way, a left-turning car HONKED at me because I did not WAIT for him TO GO FIRST.

HUH? HUH???

But no matter. On the phone or personally ignorant, right? Most people know better, just not him.

Then today, I was turning right, and barely missed getting hit by someone who was turning left into the same drive and apparently thought he had the right-of-way.

So I went to Google, and confirmed that I WAS RIGHT. In America, the vehicle on the right has the right-of-way in every situation. Every single situation.

So what’s wrong with Tulsa – or is it Oklahoma?

My brother in Michigan e-mailed me a story about a change in Oklahoma law last November. Apparently, Oklahoma thought it made sense for people to turn left in front of oncoming traffic, and declare that they had the “right-of-way” by gesturing with their hands. “Hey you!” they would say with their hand. “This is ME, and I’m taking it!” If someone turning left called “dibs” on right-of-way, oncoming traffic had to stop and wait while they turned.

There was a lawsuit where a motorcycle rider didn’t notice that a truck declared dibs on “right-of-way”, so he went straight, and the left-turning truck killed him. The truck driver got off because he had gestured with his hand that he was turning left. Motorcycle rider’s fault. (My ass.)

They finally changed that law in November, but apparently some Oklahomans didn’t get the memo. Who knows if they were waving at me to stop for them. I didn’t think to look.

Anyway, I’m finding myself passing on the left these days, as if I’m supposed to. What happens to our psyche, when we’re exposed for a period of time to different mores and cultural norms? We change, I guess. (All but one Japanese gentleman.)

But I still know that, in America, you’re supposed to pass on the right, even as I sigh and pass on the left in Tulsa.