Helping Others

A familiar story helps demonstrate the challenges of helping others.

A heavy flood came to an area.  As the rain fell, a man crawled to the roof of his house to wait for God to rescue him as his faith had taught. 

A man with a canoe came by and offered help, but the man stayed on the roof saying that help was coming from God.  Another person in an outboard motor boat came by and offered assistance, but the man did not get on board saying he was waiting for God to save him.  A helicopter came to lift the man off of his drowning house; he declined saying that he still had faith in his God to come for him.

Eventually, the house was washed away and the man died.  Upon his arrival in heaven, he complained to God about His neglect to save him.  God replied that He had sent three ways to save the man, but since it was not what the man expected from God, he had chosen to perish.

Many of us who have the desire and temperament to offer help to those around us sometimes face a similar predicament.  The gift of assistance we offer is not what the other person is specifically expecting, so they refuse to accept the gift. 

We usually then have two frustrated people:  the person who wants to give and cannot get his assistance accepted in the form offered as well as the person who wants help only in a certain manner and/or from a particular person/group.

For those who wish to help others, we often need to ask ourselves IF the assistance is wanted.  There are people in our society who do not want to receive help from others.  We could find ourselves in a situation like the Eagle Scout who tried to help the old woman cross the road when she didn’t want to go.  How much does one force another to take help "for their own good"?

There are also individuals who take pride in their independence and see receiving help as some form of dependence on others.  They do not want to bother others or they may believe that they are not worthy of the gifts that people want to offer.  It is difficult to help someone who sees themselves as unworthy of assistance.

Other persons want their assistance in a specific form.   For example, they may want money to handle their bills.  They do not see the absence of health problems as a gift that allows them more money for other areas of living.  It can be difficult to see that the old car that continues to run day after day is a valuable financial gift.  Instead people can often be waiting to win a lottery or receive an inheritance.  Like the man on the roof, they want their help from God to come in a specific format and at a special time.

The area of helping and being helped by others can further be complicated by the self-image each of us has as to who we are.  

Often people who see themselves as a giver have a difficult time adapting to the receiver role.  It is difficult to go against the personal roles of how we see ourselves since we have spent a lifetime building them.   

Others who are in the receiver role can find themselves adapting to a victim-role or one who has expectations that others should help them.  Before offering help to these persons it would be beneficial for both to determine what expectations each have of giving and receiving various types of assistance.  Knowledge is helpful.

Being able to give assistance to others and receive help is part of what makes us the humans that we are.  We tell others and ourselves what values and beliefs we have when we exercise the process of giving and receiving to others in our world.

Comments welcome.      Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

 

Aging As Happiness

One of the most fascinating parts of our American culture is the perception of many people that one grows unhappier as each birthday indicates another year of aging.

Most of us have met people who want to minimize any attention to their birthdays and the entire process of getting older.  These individuals perceive that aging brings on the negative aspects of poor health, limited physical activity, job discrimination, etc. 

Do some of these real characteristics of aging limit a person’s choices to be happy?   Of course they can be a factor.   There are negative aspects of being older just as there can be negative aspects of being young.  At any age we face the reality that our lives are constantly changing in some way and we have choices on how we manage those changes.

We live in a society where youth is highly valued.  We spend a fortune on keeping ourselves looking younger.  Our verbal comments of approval are often given to those of us who have a youthful look, especially after the ‘middle years’ of life.  To “look old” is frequently seen as a discounting the value of that person in the eyes of many.

Are many seniors in poor moods because they are older or because of some other factor like becoming “invisible” to the eyes of many young people?  Or is it because they do have pain as their body does age and, like any machine, develops parts that do not work as well after 70 or 90 years of use? 

Do seniors themselves buy into this cultural propaganda that aging should lead them to unhappiness?  Resisting this belief can be a challenge when one is constantly receiving commercial messages that happiness comes only when one is active and youthful in their behavior.  Resisting this biased message can be even more difficult when family and friends are sharing, often uninvited, their own views of how one should behave as we age.  If one hates to age, most of their energy goes to the hate rather than managing any positive aspects of life.

My own experience is that we seniors frequently see ourselves as more happy in our older years than when we were younger.   Do we miss some of the characteristics of youth?  Yes, many of us do, but we have also acquired maturity about living that was not available to us in our youth.

One asset of being a senior is that we have a good idea of who we are as an individual.   We can understand and accept our personal assets and liabilities.  We know our life accomplishments and how we have been blessed to give and receive from so many persons.

We have knowledge of what is really important to us such as relationships with family and friends.  Religion and spirituality are more understandable and we integrate them into our lives more easily.  We know that illness is one part of our life journey and we acknowledge the power we have to define ourselves as being more than a collection of illnesses.   With this knowledge of ourselves we can be less fearful of the future and we can be more open in expressing our beliefs and values to others.

Finally, one aspect of aging that contributes to our choice to be happy with our attitudes and behavior is the coming to a peace with the limitations of time spent on this earth.  We know that death will eventually come to all of us, even if our culture discourages us from openly talking about it.  As we age, we are able and willing to acknowledge that this gift of life will end at some point.  Making the most of what is left of our life gift allows us to choose to be as happy as we decide we want to be.

Comments welcome.     Email:  silverchatline@gmail..com

Is That All?

One of the most challenging tasks that many of us face is to convey an abstract or non-physical concept to another.  It can be difficult to have someone understand something that is not easily seen, or touched, and has no odor or sound.  An idea that does not fit into a person’s  “norm” of life can test the creativity of one who is trying to have another person understand.

One of the foundations of this blog series has been build on the concept of listening hospitality with the belief that truly listening to another person is a rare, but very valuable gift.  Yet with so many people who see listening as basically not talking, it can be difficult to convey the unique value of caring and loving listening.

 One of my recent projects has been to establish, organize and maintain a Listening Post in the county where I live.  The foundation of the Listening Post is to offer listening hospitality in a safe and confidential environment without any advice giving, judging, preaching, problem solving, or counseling.

While sharing the vision of this program possibility with a friend of many years, his reaction to offering the gift of listening in a program format was: “Is that all?”  It took some dialogue for him to see that people can need to give and receive listening without the exchange of monetary currency.

If you were to talk to a hair stylist, bartender, barber, sales person or almost anyone who deals with the public, you will learn that much of their daily job duties involve listening to other people, regardless of whether it is part of their official job description.

If you attend a social gathering like a party or an organization like a church, you soon realize that the leaders and the ones who are liked the most are the ones who are skilled in listening to others.  They are at the center of any sub-groups because people like being with them.

Several years back there was a movie called “Oh, God” with George Burns and John Denver.  In the last scene of the movie Denver’s character asks God (Burn’s character), if we “could talk together sometime” as he had enjoyed and learned so much from their conversations.  God responds with the true essence of prayer by saying: “You talk, I’ll listen”.

Carrying that same thought a bit further, one can see that one of the major values of having a prayer life is that one gets to talk about anything they wish.  There are no proper or forbidden topics.  One can be open about whatever is in their head and heart. 

There is no time limit or interruption from any heavenly deity.  As one old song goes “there is no busy signal on the hotline to God”.   Many people are often amazed that they get “answers” to their prayers by learning to listen to what they themselves are saying in prayer regardless of the format one chooses to use.

The Listening Post program is offering this same gift coming from a human being rather than a deity.  The volunteer is present for the people who need the concrete presence of a caring human to listen and respond. 

There will always be people who do not recognize the true difficulty of keeping their mouth closed (two eyes, two ears, and only one mouth to be used in this proportion).  Yes, we do live in a society that rewards talking, which makes a true and caring listener even more rare.

So, the next time someone says “Is that all?”, when you are offering the gift of listening hospitality without any prerequisites, you can remind yourself what a loving and powerful gift you are truly giving even when many do not understand the concept.

Comments welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Value of Life

Recently a dear friend of mine told me that she was considering having her pet dog “put down”.   I then recalled a time last year when a family dog had to die after she ate anti-freeze put out by a neighbor who dislikes animals.

These experiences elicited a series of questions within me about the value of life and the similarities and differences we have in our value systems toward people and animals.

My self-inquiry as to the reasoning for putting these dogs to death exhibited the physical and mental dysfunctions that the dogs had.  Pain was present and there seemed to be no way to ease it.  

One had bodily functions that were not working which caused problems for the dog and the humans around him.   Being able to hear had virtually disappeared.  He had behavior around the family with depression-like characteristics. The other was going to die soon due to poison and immediate death seemed kinder.

What are the values of letting these dogs die when their body and mind reach a high degree of dysfunctionality?   Do we have an obligation to release them from misery by administering a system of humane death?  Who makes the choice and what is the appropriate degree of dysfunctional characteristics necessary for a decision of life or death to be made?

Do we make every effort to keep the animal alive regardless of his condition?   Do we make financial investments in the animal health care system that place a strain on our own financial resources?   Do we keep the dogs alive out of our own love for them and our own unwillingness to let them leave our lives and being part of our family?  Many persons really do love and care about their pets equally, if not more, than they do their relatives and make their pets ‘human’.

These questions come to mind each time I see the choices being placed on human beings who have family members who are experiencing some of the same characteristics as the dogs described above.  Is there some point where it is best for all concerned to cease intervention in the degeneration of a person’s mind and body so that our loved ones can follow the natural progression of life that ends in death?  Are we kinder to our animal family than we are to our human family with all of the efforts made to keep humans alive?

While willing to discuss the pros and cons of taking an animal’s life, our society has a difficult time facing the issue of whether an individual has reached a point in their life journey where their body and/or mind indicates that being allowed to die is the most humane outcome for that person. And the discomfort may grow with the role of investing extensively our personal and societal financial resources in their care.

How each one of us feels about this different way we treat the severe illness of humans and animals usually depends on our personal value system.  There are those who see no need to discriminate between treatment of humans and animals regarding the death process.  We should/should not intervene in either.

There are people who believe we should encourage death in both animals and humans when certain illness characteristics are met.

Other see the value of humans as being totally different and much more important than how we treat animals when it comes to handling the decisions on either letting a human die without intervention or maybe helping the death process along due to humane concerns.

One of the cornerstones of personal growth is “Different Strokes for Different Folks”.  We all have our personal value systems on subjects such as the process of death at the end of one’s life journey.

As I get older, I find myself with more and more questions about such things and fewer answers.  I expect to die the same way.

Comments welcome.     Email: silverchatline@gmail.com

Emails for Private Blogging

Power for Positive Living is different from many blogs in that it offers access to the author by a special email address.  While one can still comment on each blog for all to read, the email address is offered for those who prefer to react to the blog’s content by communicating only with the author in a more private manner.

As always with so much of life, the choice of whether to communicate and how it will be done remains your choice.

Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

No Freebies

There seem to be many people in our world who are frequently upset that the world is not full of ‘freebies’ -- thoughts, feelings and behaviors without some cost attached to them.  Their expectation is that there should be freebies in their lives and that they are entitled to have their fair share, if not more.

Most people who have reached a certain maturity level recognize that there are usually no freebies and that almost everything in life has some type of ‘price’ attached to it. 

The price may be obvious and carried out in our financial monetary system where almost everyone understands the value of a dollar, peso, pound, etc.  The price may be marked for all to see or it can be open to some form of barter and negotiation.  Characteristics are that the persons involved understand the system being used and the unit of measure being used for payment.

This type of system of purchase and payment for goods and services is the easy part of life.  The difficulty for most people comes when the system changes to situations where the type of currency is different such as emotionality.  It can be difficult to determine what type and degree of emotionality is being used to purchase and pay for exchanging feelings and behaviors.

Just because there is no monetary unit being exchanged, one can pay the price of frustration with the illusion that any exchange itself has become free.  For example, if we invest ourselves into the building and maintaining of a friendship with an individual, then we have paid a price to reach the status of having a friend. 

We usually tend to expect the friend to pay us with a returned friendship that includes payment of certain feelings and behaviors.  As with the use of currency, the amount can be openly marked or left unknown and/or hidden until there is a process of barter and/or negotiation.  Even our personal expectations of self and others have a price to be paid.

For example, if we give our love to someone.   For most of us we expect to be repaid by the other person returning their love.  The price of love paid can be as varied as there are types of people in the world and the individual methods each of us is willing to pay for our personal happiness.

Some sell their love at a low price where many people can accept the price and are able/willing to make the payments.   Others may offer their love at an emotional price so high that only a few are able or willing to feel and behave in a way to pay the price expected.

One can choose to pay their price of not being perfect, not getting a job, being cheated by a dishonest family member, etc., with payments of depression and anxiety.  There really are few limits to the type and degree of currency we can use to pay for the positive or negative exchanges in our daily lives.

So, whenever there is a friendship or some other human exchange, it is much easier for us to realize that we are paying some type of price and that most of us are expecting to be paid as well.

Our society is based on these expectations of payment exchanges and we can be happier when we seek and understand the type and amount of payment we are offering and expecting. 

Otherwise, we open our selves to being frustrated with illusional expectations that anything of value in this world should not have a price and should be free to us.

Comments welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Personal Secrets

Is a person being dishonest if they make the choice not to tell other people a piece of information that they consider personal and prefer to keep a secret?

An email addressed to the Silver Chat Line arrived asking if a person was being dishonest when they preferred not to openly discuss their sexual orientation with others.  While this blog site is not an advice column, this email raises an interesting question about what is healthiest for us and to others when we choose not to disclose information about ourselves which may make us uncomfortable or may make the other person experience a degree of discomfort.

Our cultures are really not comfortable having open, honest and direct discussions about human sexuality even though we flood ourselves with sex in printed materials, movies, music, etc.  We can laugh about it or we can intellectualize it, but seldom do we feel safe enough to be open with our dialogues, especially if we and/or society may tend to see our feelings and behaviors as “different”.

This individual was sharing that the gay sexual feelings were a natural part of life.  He/she liked the idea of having a world in which we each took each other as we were and did not have negative stereotypes of certain groups.  However, he/she realized that this is not our cultural behavioral norm.

People tend to like to be with people who are like them; we like to associate with individuals who we consider “normal”.  Are we being dishonest with them if we choose to avoid disclosing certain things about ourselves where others may have judgmental attitudes and behaviors? 

Even though it is obvious that our creator made people in all different and diverse types, there are many who believe that everyone should have the same sexual orientation.  One could ask why people who have been created with different physical traits, emotional characteristics, etc., should all have the same sexual orientation?

Part of the socialization process is the sharing and receiving of information with others.  Some have the belief that the more information they give/receive with others, the more real and strong is the relationship.  There are probably individuals who would place their sexual orientation on a highway billboard since they believe sharing personal information is always “good”.

Some like to give out personal information in measured amounts to people with varying degrees of closeness.  They see personal characteristics such as sexuality as secrets that are only shared with persons who have earned a degree of trust.

Another question that can be considered is how much personal information do others really want to know about us?   If they know some information they may need to do something about it.   Not knowing is sometimes easier and may avoid internal conflicts. 

For example, someone with a conservative religious background may find it much easier to not know about a person’s sexual orientation if that type of information conflicts with her/his personal and religious value system.  Ignorance can offer bliss. 

Like many other areas of personal growth, the answer to this question is within each individual.  It remains our personal choice to decide what honesty in sharing personal information entails – whether something is to be shared or kept as a personal secret.

Comments welcome.     Email: silverchatline@gmail.com