Exercise and It’s Discontents

Posted on by under Self

I crossed the finish line. My time wasn’t great, but I completed the 12 kilometer San Francisco Bay to Breakers race. In 1986, I was young, slim, and reasonably fit. From what people said, it sounded like fun, so I did it.

And how did I feel? Honestly, I felt neither exhausted nor euphoric. I felt nothing, really, except the pain in my knees the following day. It was a task I set out to do, and I completed it. I had no doubt that I would. And I had no expectation that I’d get the “runner’s high.”

Twio X | Parkour Leipzig
I’m still waiting for the day when exercise releases endorphins into my brain, giving me that euphoric feeling after a strenuous physical workout. When is it supposed to start happening?  Please tell me, because I really want to know. I’ve been waiting 4 decades for it.

Frankly, exercise leaves me with only one, simple feeling: tired. That seems normal, doesn’t it?  I’ve put out effort, I’ve burned all my calories. What else should I be expecting?

Euphoria, apparently.

That’s not to say I don’t have my exercise routines, because I do. I make a point of walking for 20 to 30 minutes each day, outdoors. And I lift weights on a regular basis.  If I’m being really good, I ride my bike once in a while. But these all have side benefits independent of any expected euphoria. Walking and biking get me outdoors. The weights allow me to avoid being embarrassingly unmanly when I have to lift something.

They are not, however, driven by any passion or expectation of euphoria. My exercise is a necessary evil, a means to an end, not an end itself. It is like sex in a passionless marriage, or the routine of a dull job. I do it because I’m supposed to, and I pretend to like it.

I could really use a dose of that alleged euphoria I hear so much about, though. It might make a difference.

Was It Something I Said?

Posted on by under Accepting, Music

We broke up by email.

“Dear band friends,” it said. “I emailed Mike yesterday to let him know that I was planning on leaving the band and that I thought we should disband. We talked it over today and we are in agreement — while we may individually (and collectively) continue to play music in various configurations, the band is no more.  –Brad”

bassman

Me – the bass player – going for it at one of our better gigs.

I was okay with it at first. There had been some signs that foretold our demise. Our drummer had quit and we were struggling to find our sound without her. We needed to either a) locate a new drummer or b) figure out a new configuration to play our songs with what we had. So, it wasn’t much of a surprise that it just wasn’t going to work out.

But then, about six months later, I found out that, with a new band name, Mike was playing again with our singer. A few months after that, Brad had joined them and they played an outdoor gig nearby.

That meant that, besides the drummer who quit, the band was back together. Except without me.

I won’t say that it didn’t sting. Because it did. And it still does.

At the outset, the break up seemed unremarkable. I’d been with the band for four years, and Mike and Brad had been playing together for about six. We’d performed a respectable number of paying gigs and recorded a CD. But these kinds of things have a life cycle, and time was beginning to take its toll. The drummer quitting was the final straw, and while we tried to limp along for a couple of months, it wasn’t working and we knew it.

At least, that’s what I thought. But now Brad, Mike, and the singer are playing together again, so there clearly is no tension or grudge held there. The drummer quit. Of all of us, I’m the only member who

  • was not consulted on the break up,
  • did not leave voluntarily, and
  • was not asked to rejoin.

I think they’re trying to tell me something.

But what? I gave all I had to give to the band. My bass playing was only getting better. I provided valuable suggestions on riffs and arrangements that were readily adopted. I supplied back-up vocals and percussion. I showed up to all the gigs. What did I do that merits being exiled? Was it something I said?

Sure, if I wanted to be blunt, I could ask. But I’ve only had a few conversations with Brad over the past year, and none with Mike. It’s not like I’ve had the opportunity to easily bring up the topic. And I don’t think it would go over well if I showed up unannounced, demanding an explanation. That would just make me look crazy.

Besides, actions speak louder than words. The message is loud and clear.

The new band will be performing in the next couple weeks. They have a different guy playing bass. They didn’t even extend me the courtesy of a personal note.

It’s Time For a Revision: An Addendum

Posted on by under Accepting, Career, Dreams

In any given situation, behavior can be at odds with one’s feelings about the situation. In such cases, people become discontent and seek ways to make their behavior and feelings consistent with each other. The condition–known in psychology as “cognitive dissonance”–is solved by either changing one’s behavior or changing one’s attitude towards it. Frequently, the chosen response is to adjust one’s attitude rather than trying to change one’s circumstances.

People have cognitive dissonance in connection with a great many things because, sadly, things are not always as we wish them to be.  We rationalize and make excuses, always hoping that if we keep re-framing, we can set things right. But many times, the situation is what is wrong, so that is what must change.
the Door

Recently, I came to realize that I’ve had cognitive dissonance  in regard to my career, and decided that it was time to do something about it.

Yet I have continued to wonder why it has taken me this long to seek out alternatives, and I think that maybe I’ve found an answer. A classic psychological study demonstrated that the more invested one feels in a situation, the less likely one is to abandon it and the more likely one is to try to change one’s attitude to fit. Such efforts to relieve the cognitive dissonance are not always successful. “It’s worthwhile, and a bit alarming, to ask how many…projects we fail to abandon – bad jobs, bad marriages, bad wars – because we think we’ve invested too much to turn back,” notes Oliver Burkeman, who writes about social psychology for The Guardian.

I’ve spent more than 15 years pursuing a career that I thought would bring the satisfaction of making a difference in the world. It hasn’t, and no amount of attitude adjustment is going to make it so. I had thought I’d invested too much to turn back, but my lay-off forced me to confront the absurdity of sticking with it. I see that clearly now.

I can close the door on this stage of my life. I’m ready to open a new one.

Helping Hands

Posted on by under Compassion, Connection, Risk

Near my home, there is an intersection of two busy roads where people beg for money. I drive through at least weekly. It is a rotating cast of characters. You have the disabled veteran, or the older guy who has “lost it all,” or the woman with the multiple kids she must feed. I can’t tell if they’re drawn there because it’s a particularly lucrative spot, or if panhandling has now reached the suburbs and intersections are the new street corner.

Only occasionally do I give some money. But I am always moved. I just don’t know how best to respond.

Sometimes what’s needed is a helping hand. Sometimes what’s needed is a hand to hold.

Often, it’s hard to tell, at any given moment, which is needed more.
Helping hands

Last July, a friend of mine lost her partner to cancer. They’d been together only a few years, and both were married before. Essentially, she had stopped communicating during the last month of his life, and in the months following. I struggled to discern whether she needed help, and if so, what kind? What was the right help to offer?

Recently, a couple I know who are the parents of one of my son’s friends were struck by a car while crossing the street. When I first heard, my reaction was to be a part of their support network. But as each day led to the next, and the struggles of my own life claimed my attention, their need became less pressing. They have mostly recovered now, and I didn’t even stop by their house. Was that the best thing to do?

Twelve years ago, my life derailed when my wife suffered a ruptured aneurysm while carrying our second child. I’ve written about this before, so I won’t repeat the details. With hindsight, though, I can see that during her recovery, I was facing  grief, traumatic stress, the normal demands of raising small children and earning a living, and serving as my wife’s primary care-giver, all mixed together. My needs changed constantly, even several times a day. I could never, while immersed in it, say with any certainty whether I needed a helping hand or a hand to hold. Honestly, at times it was probably both simultaneously, while at other times neither. Often, when people asked if there was anything they could do, I couldn’t say because I just didn’t know.
sadness

What is the “right” response? How can anyone tell what another person needs, and when they need it?

In the book How Can I Help? Stories and Reflections on Service, authors Ram Dass and Paul Gorman say that while it natural to want to help, compassion is not without complication.

“We needn’t go deep beneath the surface before we encounter our ambivalence,” they write. “We note the interplay of generosity and resistance, self-sacrifice and self-protectiveness…. There are clearly many ways in which we hesitate to reach out or we get confused when we try.”

In spite of the complete mystery of it, sometimes people do do the right thing. That December, when it all began to unravel for me, my wife’s former employer brought us a Christmas tree. I could not have said at the time that I needed it, but I deeply believe now that it was exactly the right thing for us.
Holding Hands

Contrary to what many may think, the helping transaction requires something from each party—both the helper and the helped are giving and getting. I was very bitter and angry when I was in need of help. I probably asked for less than I needed, and was less gracious than I could have been.

In contrast, I see a cheerful gratitude in the couple recovering from the car accident. They feel lucky to be alive, which says so much about their approach to the event.

What had I to offer them? Maybe very little. Should I have done something? Probably.

Action is required, and compassion, and luck. “On this path we will stumble, fall, and often look and feel a little foolish,” say Dass and Gorman. But in the end, we’ve done what we could, and we “trust the rest to God, to Nature, to the Universe.”

It’s Time For a Revision

Posted on by under Accepting, Career, Dreams

 

A Manifesto

I’m tired and I want out.

Until recently, I was pretty sure I was in my choice of career, acquiring the knowledge and skills that would allow me to be a purposeful part of society. But perhaps the traditional career is not my cup of tea after all. Instead, perhaps I need to reexamine what set me on this path in the first place, and redirect my efforts into work that is more personally rewarding.

When I lost my job in 2009, I basically panicked. I have a wife, two kids, and a mortgage. I had to do something. Unfortunately, this obscured my ability to see any alternative opportunity. Like a drowning man, I lost hold of any rational view of the best course of action. I ended up being re-hired by the same company, doing work related to my former position.

Revision camp
As the panic has subsided, I am able to look at my assumptions. One is that I wanted a traditional career, the conventional man-as-breadwinner model.  It seemed a reasonable assumption, being the best way to make my mark in life and provide for myself and my family. However, I’ve realized that when my job was eliminated, the idea of my career had been eliminated too.

This has not been an easy realization for me. I wrote an essay that was published elsewhere about my conflicted feelings concerning my career, or lack thereof. (I was given a pseudonym by the publisher as protection from potential career damage.) I said there that for many people, and men especially, the career goes to define the adult self. Without the recognition that a career brings—amongst peers, colleagues, and maybe also the public—life lacks direction.

Now I’m seeing that I committed career suicide a long time ago–I just didn’t know it.

Honestly, though, I’ve never had a clear vision of my course in life. I’ve flip-flopped many times, with few consistent threads to hold it together. But I had a dream, an ephemeral idea of who I saw myself as. Essentially, it involved being an effective part of finding a solution to what I saw as the critical issue of my generation—the environment. And it involved doing so in a creative fashion, most likely writing.

But my dream had some flaws. Specifically, my pursuit of a career has been misguided in regard to corporate life generally and specifically work on environmental issues. Neither has been as satisfying or successful as I had hoped. I thought that, given enough time, the personal rewards would come, but it just hasn’t happened.

Time to set a new course.

A writer friend of mine once pointed out that the word “revision” actually is “re-vision”, as in “to see again.” Recently, I’ve come to see that my life, post lay-off, will require a revision.

But long-standing points of view do not change overnight. And I see, with the help of some time and distance, that my insistence on sticking to the corporate comforts and the environmental path was blinding me to other possibilities.

This means that I need to stop clinging to what I think I ought to be doing. Says writer Amy Gutman, “The more wedded we are to a specific outcome—the more we narrow our sights—the harder it may be to craft a fulfilling life with the materials at hand.”

Changing entrenched habits requires new methods. To borrow from the “tactical urbanism” lexicon, I need to take a deliberate, but phased, approach to change, making short-term commitments and keeping my expectations realistic. In other words, I need to make a choice, set small goals, stick to it, and take baby steps.

Furthermore, I need to see the problem in its component parts. Only then can I eliminate what is unnecessary and cast off the extraneous. What remains is what I need to live.

Thoreau wrote “I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely.”

A vision is forming, and I think I see a way. I’m letting go of the dream…to find a new one.

Note: See also the addendum to this post.