on Not Taking It Personally

1) Have you ever ignored someone not returned a call or email from a friend in a timely way, even though you wanted to?

2) Have you ever snapped at someone in irritability when you were really frustrated about something else?

3) Have you ever posted a picture of you and a couple friends on facebook?

4) Have you ever had your feelings hurt because someone didn't return your call, invite you to do something, or otherwise maintain a connection with you, even when you felt it was 'their turn' to do so?

5) Have you ever been convinced that your boss, your spouse, or your friend was being mad at you, but you just couldn't figure out why?

6) Have you ever gotten your nose out of joint because you saw pictures of friends together on facebook and their social gathering didn't include you?

I bet 99% of people would answer yes to any of the above questions.  Many of us feel left out, injured, or hurt because we take other people's actions personally. This, despite the fact that we have been on the other end of things - been the ones to disappoint people ourselves.

One of the greatest errors in thinking we make is assuming that others are thinking of us.  One of the greatest freedoms we can give ourselves is to realize that most people aren't thinking about us - their thinking about themselves and their own lives.

Very few people want to hurt our feelings on purpose.  Hurting our feelings is a by-product of our assumption that people should treat us in a certain way.

This brings to my mind some that I've read about Adam Phillip's new book, "Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life" (I haven't read it, so I guess this is in praise of the Unread Book).  He is a British psychoanalytic writer and the book was reviewed in last week's New Yorker.  Phillips says that we always assume that the life we could've had would have been better - if our parent's would have been better, if we would have married our first love, if we would have chosen to be a pilot instead of a banker - that somehow our imagined lives always seem like they'd be better to us.  He says this is a false assumption - how do we KNOW that it would have been better?  Maybe we should accept and love the life we got.

Here's an excerpt from Joan Acocella's New Yorker piece, "Phillips was lured into psychoanalysis by the writings of D.W. Winnitcott [whose] main contribution to psychoanalytic thought is the idea of the good-enough mother, the mother who sometimes responded promptly to our needs and sometimes didn't.  The beauty of this concept was that is was so widely applicable - most people had that kind of mother...I think that Phillips regards Winnicott's good-enough mother as not just good enough, but the best, because she tells us the truth:  on occasion we'll get satisfaction and on occasion we won't...if we insist on getting it all the time, he asks, 'how could we ever be anything other than permanently enraged?'"  

The Good-Enough Mother or Father or Friend or Co-Worker isn't trying to be mean, he or she just has other things going on (other children to take care of, a mother in the hospital, a wife who just lost her job, a birthday party to plan, etc. etc.)

And sometimes one of our friends or someone in our family goes through a particularly hard time and they're not there for us at all.  And it does hurt our feelings.  I know I have been on both ends of this scenario as well and it seems to me that this is a more serious thing, and probably a topic for a different post.

So in the day to day, I imagine what our lives would be like if we assumed that people like us and love us.  What if we believed that the people in our life genuinely like us and care about us - how would we interact with the world differently?  How much less anxiety or anger would we harbor?   All those people in our life are not perfect in their attentiveness to us, but what if that were good enough?

Beyond 'Girls' and Boys

With the return of HBO’s hit series, Girls, I’ve recently read an onslaught of  newspaper and magazine pieces speculating about dating, sex, and gender issues in the lives of 20-somethings.  I guess we’re supposed to find them endlessly fascinating.  It’s especially curious, because I’m reading these articles in the New York Times and the New Yorker, places that I am sure have a median age readership far older than 24 years.  So, I find myself more concerned with older people and our obsession with youth than I am about ‘hook up culture’ and what it means for dating.

I am a middle aged person, more or less, and this is what I’d like to say to us:   we would do better not to think about the Girls and Boys so much.  If you want to get older and enjoy yourself, start thinking about and spending time with older people.  Instead of looking at where you’ve already been, start thinking about where you’re going and who you might want to be when you get there. 

This can work in two helpful ways.  It can help show you what you don’t want to be and it can help point you in the direction of what and who you DO want to be. 

The first time I became fully aware of the “Don’t Want To Be” category of  older people was when I lived and worked in Washington, D.C. I was in my early 20s.  It was a high pressure/low pay job, though my superiors were very well paid, and growing more well-paid every year (the dot com years!).  People who were ‘old’ to me then, ranged in the ages from 35 to 50.  Not all, but more than several really struggled mentally and emotionally with the stress of their lives and balancing work   and family.  I remember working on a particular Saturday at my ‘cube’, when a project manager, who was probably 35 to 40 came to me crying.  “Will you talk to my husband on the phone?” she asked.  “He doesn’t believe me about how stressful this is.  He doesn’t understand how mean our boss can be.  Will you tell him?”  I did NOT want to be this person in ten years!  I began to examine the contributing factors to the panic and neuroses  around me.  I began to envision my life going in a different direction than the direction I seemed headed.

Conversely, I have had the opportunity in the past ten years to be around some vibrant, curious, wise older people, who have ranged in age from 50 to 95 years old.  Not only have I had friendships and mentoring relationships with some, some I have had the privilege to be with as a hospice worker or therapist.  When I am with an older person, I listen carefully.  Here are some characteristics I notice in people who age with grace and complexity: 

1)      They take risks – they take classes or travel or try new hobbies

2)      They find the humor in life and in themselves

3)      They are flexible with their time and flexible with their minds.  They don’t get stuck in one way of thinking, but continue to learn

4)      They stay curious about the world and show an interest in things that are ageless – music, art, reading, politics

5)      They have friendships with people of different ages

6)      They accept their age and don’t try to be younger (is it self-serving to say that I think dying the grey out of your hair is okay?!)

7)      They balance quiet time with activity.

I’ve heard, that when you’re mountain biking, you need to look at where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go.  Don’t look at the big boulder that you're trying to avoid, look at the smooth path you want your bike to follow. 

Our individual and collective mental health would benefit from valuing and thinking about age at least as much as youth.  I'd like to see some more articles in the New Yorker about that.