It's a Shame

Something I have noticed about most people is that on some level they are at least a little disappointed with themselves, a little ashamed of who they are. By this, I mean that they carry around an exaggerated, unwarranted belief that who they are is not quite acceptable, not quite up to par. When people allow me to peek behind their defenses, behind the walls most of us protect ourselves with, it is not unusual to get a glimpse of their belittling self-assessments. I wrote a blog about this once before, about the need to accept ourselves as "OK," and I have been thinking about it again lately. Is it inevitable that people should grapple with feelings of unworthiness?

Ted Bundy 

I am not talking about a person being ashamed for something they have actually done. If a person is a serial killer, or molests children, or tortures kittens, shame for those acts is a good thing. However, people who do those things are often incapable of shame or guilt, ironically, and so the people with the most to be ashamed about sometimes aren't.

Recently,  I have noticed how often people blame themselves, or some imagined or real shortcoming of theirs, for events over which they have little or no control.  If a person faces difficult circumstances of any kind, very often they react out the belief that some failing in them lead to their difficulty. For example, someone with a potentially fatal disease may wonder what they did to cause God to punish them in that way. What could they have done differently, or how could they have been different, that would have caused God to treat them more kindly? Such a reaction says, "This is happening to me because I'm not worthy."

I also firmly believe that living life listening to an internal monologue that emphasizes a person's shortcomings can lead to behaviors that only add to a person's negative self-image. People who feel unworthy often try to comfort themselves through addictive behaviors, such as compulsive eating or substance abuse. Addictive behaviors lead to more shame, which leads to a resolution to do better in the future, which often leads to failure, which leads to more shame, and more reason to believe the little voice inside that says, "You suck."

In that previous blog I linked to above, I explored the possible reasons people are so often unkind to themselves and so often hold themselves in low esteem.  I guess there are as many answers to that question as there are people.  It is a pervasive problem that affects most people to one degree or another.

Because it often difficult to see that we are doing this to ourselves, it also often hard to help ourselves out of negative self-talk and the feelings of unworthiness that go with it.  So, from the Free Advice Department, I offer the following:

• You don't need to be ashamed of the essence of who you are.  You are only one of you that God made. You have reason to be proud of you.
• Everyone has made mistakes, and everyone has areas in which they fall short.   Improve in areas where you can, and make reparations when it's possible.  Try to let the rest go.
• Allow yourself to forgive yourself for your failures.  Trust yourself to learn from them and to use them to do better in the future.  
• If something bad happens in your life, it is not because God is angry with you.  I promise, He loves you.  He does not want to torture you.
• Sometimes bad things just happen.  They do not happen to you because you deserve them.  

"Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world."  -Lucille Ball

Feeling Strongly Both Ways

If you know me from Facebook, you know that I like to collect quotations.  I also like to share them on Facebook as status updates.  Often, they evoke interesting responses with folks who are also interested in them. 

Recently, I posted this one from Thomas Bailey Aldrich: "To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent - that is to triumph over old age."   

My friend Kathy responded to that post with this comment:  "So many people I encounter become cynical and just downright mean and stubborn as they age, not being able to keep up with life moving forward.  I hope to keep a positive, healthy, encouraging outlook as I age."  I commented back that that is a worthy goal, and that I hope to do the same.  

But Kathy's comment reminded of another status I posted recently, one that is original with me, and is based on my own experience:  "By the time you reach middle-age, if you are not at least a little cynical, then you just haven't been paying attention."

So, then I was experiencing a little cognitive dissonance, because, while I really do believe the sentiment expressed in the Alrich quote, I also believe what I said about being cynical once you reach middle- age.  Based on my experience, I don't see how a person my age could avoid being "at least a litttle cynical."  Holding both of these seemingly oppossing opinions reminds me of something my uncle Doug Fouse said one time when he was asked him opinion about whatever topic was being argued a the time:  "I feel strongly both ways."

I'm pretty sure that Uncle Doug was being facetious, and was just opting out of the discussion.   In my case, though, Kathy's comment on the Aldrich quote I posted made me realize that, while I have been striving to maintain a positive outlook as  I age, it is also true that I am much more cynical than I was in the my younger days.  I just think I don't let that cynicism overrun my life. 

If you're like me, you know some aging people who become like the ones Kathy referred to in her comment:  "downright mean and stubborn."   To me, those people have gone beyond the trait of being "a little cynical" that I recognize in myself, to having lost the battle "to triumph over old age." Or maybe they never even tried to fight that battle.   

To me, when someone loses that battle, anyone who has been paying attention could probably understand at least some of the reasons for that.   My dad used to say that getting old is the worst sin you can commit.   By this he meant that getting older is hard work.  There are so many results of growing older (results we never expect when we are younger) that are just plain hard to accept.  Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey said it this way:  "Time is a cruel thief to rob us of our former selves. We lose as much to life as we do to death. "

So, as the years go by, what do we lose to life? We may face health issues as we get older. Usually we have less energy than we were young. Many of us aren't as incredibly handsome as we were in our younger days. Sometimes we lose people dear to us, either through death or estrangement. Sometimes life doesn't turn out the way we planned or expected, causing us to lose hope or enthusiasm for living. And, if we aren't careful, we may loose the ability to look at life in positive and hopeful ways. We may fail "to keep the heart unwrinkled" and become less than we once were, not just physically, but spiritually as well. 

 

On the other hand, the events of our lives teach us things, and sometimes what we learn is not very positive or encouraging. This is what I mean when I say that someone my age is bound to be at least a little cynical. An example for me include the fact that I have encountered some people in my life who seemed to be friends, but actually were not. They proved that they were not really friends by their actions. I am not bitter about those experiences, but I would be foolish to ignore the lessons they taught me. As a result, I am now slightly cynical about people and the motivations that may drive them. I don't trust people I don't know well as much as I might have when I was younger.

Another example is my current attitude about organized religion.  Having survived lots of church drama and the psychological abuse some churches inflict on their members, I no longer choose to attend any congregation, at least for the present.  Again, I don't brood about the events that brought me to this place in my life.  But I cannot deny that I am more cynical about churches and some of the people that attend them than I was in the past.  


Another area in which life has taught me some not-so-lovely lessons is my job.  I have survived down-sizings,  company mergers and sales, and so many Dilbert moments that my attitude about work is vastly different from what it was when I started my career.   How could it not be?  If I were still the idealistic, ambitious, driven guy I was 30 years ago, I would have to agree with anyone who accused me of just not paying attention.  So, I'm a little cynical about the corporate world.  Not angry or bitter.  Just enlightened.

Having confessed to all this cynicism, I also want to explain some of the attitudes I now embrace that I think help keep my "heart unwrinkled," and that I hope will allow me to "triumph over old age."   Although I confess to being a bit distrustful of people, I am also more open to people than I once was, more willing to accept them as they are without passing judgment.  People, including me, have quirks and annoying traits.  I am happy to mostly overlook those things and focus on the good I find in them.  There is always good in everyone, if we just bother to look.

Also, although I have become a recluse from church, I have discovered the freedom to explore my faith in ways that I never dared to before.  I allow myself to ask questions, and to decide answers for myself.  God doesn't mind if we ask questions.  He is the one who gave us brains, after all.   And I find that Jesus and his love are more real to me than ever before, and I feel freer to extend that love to those around me.

Although I sometimes feel like a prisoner in Cubicle World,  I have a new appreciation for my job.  I know that I am fortunate to be employed, and to have held a good job for over 30 years.  I am fortunate to have a job that allows me to make use of the skills I have.   Corporations are about making money, and the one that employs me has to do what it takes to stay in business and, therefore, to continue to employ me.  I have begun to see beyond some of the frustrations that have plagued me for so many years, and I am now better able to take each day, and its challenges, as they come, realizing that whatever crisis today brings will be forgotten soon.

There may be future circumstances in my life, such as illness or some other hardship I can't even foresee,  that will make it difficult for me to maintain a positive outlook (mixed with a bit of cynicism).   But like my friend Kathy, my goal is to "keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent" and so "to triumph over old age."  It probably won't be easy.

The F-Bomb

One of the benefits of having lived into middle-age is that I have been around long enough to be able to observe relatively long-term changes in our society based on first-hand experience.  I remember quite a bit from my very early childhood, so I have fifty-plus years of life on which to base those observations.

A change in societal norms that I never would have expected in my childhood, or even my early adulthood, is today's casual use of what I used to consider the granddaddy of all swear words, a mostly unspeakable term that was generally used only by the coarsest of people, or rarely, in extreme cases, by more civilized people:  the F-bomb.

I know that my negative attitude about this word was probably stronger than other people's.  When we were children, my mother was determined that my siblings and I would avoid the use of strong language, despite conflicting influences from our father, who occasionally peppered his speech with what we considered  Soldier Talk.  Our mother strictly prohibited such talk among us children.   In fact,  along with Dad's Soldier-Talk words, Mom included among the words we were not allowed to utter  the N-word (which was acceptable by some people in those days),"shut-up," "stupid," and "idiot."   I internalized her admonitions about "bad words" to such an extent that I remember once being shocked at the description of a lizard I read in a book I had selected from my second-grade teacher's shelf of books for us to read:  stupid.  For me, that word made it a "nasty book."  I shut the book immediately and returned it to the bookshelf where I had found it, wondering if the teacher knew about the scandalous language it contained.

I am not criticizing my mother's efforts to teach us about appropriate language.  Such motherly efforts were the norm in the 50s and 60s.   She wanted our language to be acceptable in any situation, and she wanted us to speak kindly to everyone, never hurtfully. If my childish perspective did not yet allow me to perceive the difference in degree between "stupid lizard" and "f*** you," that wasn't her fault.

Despite my  not quite grasping some of the subtleties of bad words in those days, I knew that the F-bomb was in a league by itself. Kids I knew would occasionally say "damn" or make a reference to to bodily excrement, but the F-word was rarely heard. Sometimes a rebel child might write it surreptitiously on the sidewalk with a chalk-rock. A more daring kid might slip it into a rendition of the Name Game song, especially if he knew someone named Chuck. But even when Dad was using his Soldier Talk, I never heard him say that word.

The BBMFIC

In fact, I have vivid memory from when I was about 10 years old of learning that some of Dad's soldiers routinely referred to him as "the BBMFIC." Upon hearing this term applied to my dad, I asked him what it stood for.  (I was always an inquisitive child.)   I remember my mom giving him a look that I couldn't read, but evidently he could, because he told me it stood for "Big Bad Mean Fouse In Charge." It was several years before I realized what those letters really stood for, and that "Mean Fouse" was not even close.

Anyway, as I grew into adulthood, I emulated my father's Soldier-Talk type of language in some situations, and was less constrained by my mother's list of forbidden words.  But for me, the F-bomb was still taboo, still shocking, and certainly not for use in mixed company.  I still considered anyone who used it to be an ill-mannered cretin, and probably not someone I wanted to associate with.  When my own children were young, I tried to keep them  hearing that kind of language by monitoring the movies and shows they saw, the songs they heard, and the people they were exposed to.

What did you say?

These days, such concerns about the use of the F-word would probably make many people wonder if I had been born not just in the last millennium, but rather in an earlier geological age.  It is heard in movies, in song lyrics, on Facebook, in the workplace, on the street, indeed in almost any setting you can think of.  It is used by young and old, by male and female, and by people of all education levels and economic levels and ethnic groups.

It is no longer shocking, not even to me.  These days being shocked by that word would be like being shocked to hear that the wind is blowing in Oklahoma.  It happens everyday.  In fact, instead of being the scorched-earth F-bomb that defied decency and social norms, today that word is more like the F-Cherry Bomb.  People might notice, it makes a bit of a point, but certainly overuse has taken some of the bang out of the F-word.  And many people today don't mind using it whenever it pops into their head, no matter what situation they are in.

Although it is no longer shocking to me, I am still a little chagrined by it, and a little embarrassed for whoever said it.  Or wrote it.  It is still coarse, and people who use it habitually often seem to be unable to omit from any communication. When somebody says something like, "Like, WTF?   My f***ing boyfriend lost my f***ing car keys, and now I have to f***ing walk to the f***ing 7-Eleven to buy some f***ing Marlboros. Sometimes he is so f***ing stupid. Cute, but f***ing stupid," I want to shout, "Hey, do you kiss your mama with that mouth? Is that the only word you know? Maybe you should download that Word Dynamo app and discover new ones."

I don't do it, though.  I am smart enough to know that people aren't going to change what they do, or what they say just because I don't approve.  Besides, if I did confront them, they would probably just tell me to F-off.

And mostly, I guess I figure they have a right to talk that way if they want to. Often, however, their use of that particular word at least somewhat overshadows whatever they are trying to convey, and diminishes them in they eyes of some people, including this old dinosaur. I think my mother was right to teach us to use appropriate speech, speech that does not insult, injure, or offend those who are listening. Usually, dropping the F-bomb oversteps at least one of those boundaries despite our society's change in attitude about its use.