Control

The other night I was invited to a friend’s house.  Out of the blue.  The kind of invitation that makes you think, “Who canceled and how far down on the I-guess-we-could-invite-her list was I?”  Still, I was free and so were the drinks, so I went.  It was a small gathering – the kind of gathering that evokes Jordan Baker’s Gatsby musing:  “At small parties there’s never any privacy.”  Indeed there wasn't, but we were an amiable group and all of the people (dog and baby included) chatted and enjoyed shared company for the evening.

At one point a woman began extolling the virtues and coolness of a new gadget she had been using, the UP by Jawbone.  This bracelet-like device that tracks exercise and sleep habits, calories burned, and probably a few more things that I’m forgetting right now.  It is sleek looking and plugs directly into your iPhone or iPad to convert its data into charts and graphs.  She demonstrated her new device for about thirty minutes, then she wandered off to make loud and uncomfortably intimate inquiries of her teenage son who was busying himself with reruns of The Big Bang Theory on television.

The next day, I recalled that my friend Kathy has a Jawbone device; I proceeded to text her, inquiring about it usefulness.  Kathy thought the device was interesting and useful, but she doesn't always wear it as a matter of fashion.  Next was my sister, a trainer and a person who, unless under extreme duress, has not missed a day of exercise since 1982.  Her response to the capabilities of this device:  just eat a little, exercise a little, sleep a little.  In short, why buy a device to track or remind you to do this?  She posed this question:  if someone told you they wanted to read 20 minutes a day and had purchased a device to help them do this, what would you say?  She went on to assert that all one really needs to do is put it in one’s calendar, and do it.

My sister isn’t wrong, but people feel the need to control things.  The modern person seems to think that controlling everything is best. If people didn’t feel this way, the Jawbone, helicopter parenting, and these house alarms with cameras that you can access from your phone would not have been invented.  Despite such advances (not including the helicopter parenting), people are at a loss as to how to control their worlds.  The idea of self-control does not seem to apply here, so the idea that one can simply put it on the calendar and do it goes out the window.  This has to do with the inundation of information that people receive.  Surface information.  We hear about things, or we see them in our Facebook feeds, or we skim a headline, and voila! we are “informed.”  The more we are informed, the more we feel that we must do.  We must eat organic and local; we must exercise 30 minutes a day; we must spend 20 minutes a day reading with our child; we must call our parents daily; we must track our sleep patterns; we must know our cholesterol.   It’s all a bit much.  Add to this that we need to be informed about current events and bake cupcakes for the fund-raiser tomorrow, top it all off with remembering usernames and passwords, and it gets hard to breathe. It is a bastardized keeping up with the Joneses. 

Once we have information and perceived requirements for living, we must get everything scheduled and organized and planned.  And, then once that’s done, we are in control.  Whew.  We can relax and follow the schedule.  Except.  Except the information is ever-changing.  So are circumstances.  Who hasn’t gotten the week planned when a beloved spouse throws a wrench into the plans with a business trip or a wild hair to finally fix the bathroom tile?  Maybe an illness or a broken toe curtails our planned dog-walking.  Perhaps a long-lost friend calls.  A child comes home with a half-frozen, starving kitten that needs to be nursed through the night.  Such occurrences madden so many people and stress so many relationships because such occurrences are not the calendar.  The thing is: human beings want to be in control.    The ever-changing refuses to be controlled.  People don’t like that.  If I don’t know what’s going to happen next, I can’t be in control, and if I am not in control, then things might get hairy, and if things get hairy, I may react in an unpredicted way, and if I react in an unpredicted way people may see the real, deep-heart me, and if people see the real me…  Aha!  Perhaps the heart of this control issue is here: have human beings become afraid of being human?  Would we like to be slightly agitated or a sniveling mess?  Can we go to work overly tired because we spent the night on the phone with an old friend in distress?  Is it okay to skip a workout to meet a new friend?  If it’s not in the plan, then perhaps we shouldn't.   If you stick to your carefully planned day, then you will know what is going to happen and avoid unforeseen emotions or stresses.

Real, human responses to crises and opportunities are not planned ahead of time.  But we don’t want to be vulnerable to forces outside of ourselves.  Our school motto is “To be rather than to seem.”  But, that isn’t the real world‘s motto.  The real world would like things to seem okay, because if everything seems okay, then the seeming has to eventually become reality, right?  In order for things to seem okay, we need to control many of those things – preferably all of them.  But, being in control is exhausting even with a smart phone and a sleep-tracking bracelet.

I am particularly good at getting organized, especially at the start of a new school year, but I sometimes stink at the follow-through.  I have a smart phone to help me get and stay organized, but let me be honest, sometimes I just play Ruzzle and text friends…okay, most often I just do that. If whatever devices, from jotting things down on the calendar to tracking your sleep and steps with a mini-computer, help you to make plans and live the life you want to live, then “it’s all good.”  Still, rather than using such things for control, perhaps we should use them for organization, and maybe we can all remember to embrace this messy, unplannable life that is at its happiest when unannounced guests come by and the best laid plans and sleep patterns get thrown out the window. 

On Yogurt, Moose, and Giving Back

Last month my middle son and I embarked on a 10-day, 14-college road trip in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.  Three pounds of Twizzlers, twelve Dasani, nine cool local cafés, half a pound of peanut butter pretzels, seven “Bear Crossing” signs, five rolls of Spree, two iPods, eleven states, six Perriers, one pound of almonds, one unsatisfying café on the Erie Canal, and innumerable tanks of gas, we were home again.  I learned a lot about the colleges we visited.  I also learned that in Vermont they “take their speed limits very seriously,” and the trooper is happy to regale you with the tale of the hit-and-run moose death while he stands precariously on the side of a mountainous road.  (speed limit: 50).  Lots of learning. 

One of the things we learned is that mid-level hotel breakfast bars are about the same nationwide – at least east of the Mississippi.  Let me just confess now that I am not a yogurt fan.  I foisted it on all three of my sons in their formative years, and they all enjoy it greatly.  I tried kefir when I lived in Moscow.  Gelatinous milk product just doesn't do it for me.  I know that it’s good for me – watch any daytime TV, and Jamie Lee Curtis will smile and have you believe that her life is worth living due to a certain brand of this dairy product.  Still, in the past year, a colleague encouraged me to try Greek yogurt, and I have come to tolerate it, if not occasionally enjoy it.  So, imagine my delighted surprise when the third hotel morning into the trip, there were not only the requisite muffins, but also Greek yogurt.  The next day, however, we were back to the standard yogurts.  I commented to my son that I wished there were Greek yogurt at each hotel.  His response?  An askew glance and a good-natured but chiding, “Some people have don’t even have food, Mom.  First world probs.”

Yes, he is right:  the UN estimated that there were 870 million undernourished people worldwide in 2012.  Of these, 16 million live in developed countries.  All my life I have seen commercials about sponsoring suffering children, as well as heard half-jokes about cleaning your plate because someone is starving somewhere in the world.  However, I cannot see the connection between my off-handed wish for Greek yogurt and world hunger.  Just as a little girl sitting in Iowa, being forced to clean her plate does not alleviate a hunger problem in a village in Africa; my hope of yogurt does not instantly cause life-giving grains and water to be denied to someone on the other side of the planet. 

I am not belittling the world hunger problem at all.  My observation is this: there seems to be a proliferation of the ill-conceived thought that because there are problems in the world, those of us who live decently must not voice any desires for that which we do not have.  I guess the thought is that since we (not sure where the socio-economic stratus starts and ends here) have so much, we dare not complain, wish for more, or fail to drop a few dollars in the red pots at Christmas time.  I think this way of thinking is a problem.  Simply put:  because there are problems in the world does not mean I am not allowed to enjoy my life or wish for Greek yogurt on a rainy upstate morning.

Of course, I am aware of how offendingly elitist the previous paragraph may sound.  But, really, the thing is that there are groups of people (teens, like my dear son, are heavily represented in such groups) who feel that until the entire world has food and water, those of us who have shouldn't complain about anything and we should donate to everything.  It’s a bit overwhelming. 

On this same trip, we stayed one night in a bed and breakfast in New England.  A lovely place which was originally a lodging house, and, we found out later, was haunted in room 20.  (We stayed in room 27).  As a matter of convenience, the owners laid out small toiletries in the bathroom.  Please know that I almost always use such toiletries when on a road trip and if I don’t use them, I leave them in place.  I don’t hoard them, but if I use a portion of a lotion or shampoo, I bring it along with me to use later.  In short, I try not to be wasteful.   At this inn, however, near the basket of toiletries, was a request that we leave our partially used tubes there so that they could be donated to a local children’s charity.  Why is a tube of shampoo no longer than my middle finger, three quarters used being donated?  If the owners wish to donate to this cause, perhaps an annual donation is in order – but small, partially consumed tubes?  This has to be as annoying to the recipients as the request was off-putting to me.   

Well, on a 3700 mile trip one has time for a lot of Twizzlers, a lot of highly questionable music selections, and a lot of reflection.  Why is it that we seem to have polarized our society into those who donate half used lotions to charities vs. those who are above even mentioning what they want because they just go buy it without a second thought?  I fall somewhere in the middle.

I’m uncomfortable.  I’m squeezed.  I’m caring.  I’m annoyed.

I donate to our school’s various campaigns for umbrellas for the homeless, gently used books for our African sister school, and the eyeglass drive for the blind.  (And, I even refrain from the curiously cynical remark that comes to mind every year at that last event.)  However, why must the mentality of needing to always be ready to donate and not being allowed a wish for an additional comfort be confronted at every turn?  Has it become essential to think of less fortunate people every moment of every day?  If so, how, then is one expected to also “seize the moment” and “enjoy life”?  I suspect there exists a group of well-meaning but rather hard people who are working on a movement to ensure that those of us with even a small modicum of comfort in life are uncomfortable with our comfort until the world’s problems have all been eradicated.  The thing is:  that’s not realistic.

Some of you will think that there are political ramifications that I am missing here.  There are.  Others may think that I’m heartless.  I’m not.  I think I’m kind of normal.  I have a career.  I have kids.  I pay taxes.  I have pets.  I try to do good.  And, I am happy to help with causes.  I have learned it is good to donate and help.  Like you, though, I don’t want to always be asked to donate – at the bank, at the grocery store, at the bed and breakfast.  I have learned that I have it really good compared to most of the world.  I am grateful.  But, I think we are entitled to keep our half-used lotion for later in the day.  And, once in a while, I’d like to have a Greek yogurt on the breakfast bar.  I don’t need it.  It’d just be nice.