NEIGHBOR (WON’T YOU BE MINE?)

November 14, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

I grew up in Washington, PA just about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh in an age where you had 3 channels on the TV and the PBS Channel. . .and that’s the one that Mr Rogers owned; I usually would be ‘watching’ my two younger brothers before dinner as my mom and sister were setting the table and putting the finishing touches on our meal.

Just say the word, NEIGHBOR and the first thing that comes to my mind, is Mr. Rogers and his little jingle as he was changing into his sweater and getting into the meat of his show.

When I watched this new video by J J Heller it took me right back to our living room with the smell of meatloaf and mashed potatoes battling the warm smell of a cake my mom had baked and just freshly applied her whipped icing.

J J reminisces too:

“I watched a Mr. Rogers clip the other day that made me cry.

He said, “You know the toughest thing is to love somebody who has done something mean to you… it’s very important to look inside yourself and find that loving part of you. That’s the part that you must take good care of and never be mean to, because that’s the part of you that allows you to love your neighbor. And your neighbor is anyone you happen to be with any time of your life.”

I’m sure I won’t get it right every time, but I don’t want to stop trying.
I hope you don’t stop trying either.

“When the chasm between us feels so wide
That it’s hard to imagine the other side
But we don’t have to see things eye to eye
For me to love you like
You are my neighbor”

TO LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF
sometimes scares a lot of
N E I G H B O R S
. . well,
because sometimes
we just don’t love ourselves all that good. . .
but here, now,
may we love ourselves and our neighbors better;
may we tune in
and hear a humble, sincere invitation:

A GULP OF KINDNESS

November 4, 2022 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

And just like
T H A T
we are quickly into the Season of Auld Lang Syne
and hopefully doing just a little bit more than raising a
CUP OF KINDNESS
as we take a sip
and share a Gulp. . .

I recently re-read the Commencement Address author George Saunders gave which reads well in all Seasons, as each day brings us to a Commencement Ceremony. He shares:

What I Regret Most Are Failures of Kindness

(–by George Saunders, syndicated from theladders.com, Jul 28, 2018)

Down through the ages, a traditional form has evolved for this type of speech, which is: Some old fart, his best years behind him, who, over the course of his life, has made a series of dreadful mistakes (that would be me), gives heartfelt advice to a group of shining, energetic young people, with all of their best years ahead of them (that would be you).

And I intend to respect that tradition.

Now, one useful thing you can do with an old person, in addition to borrowing money from them, or asking them to do one of their old-time “dances,” so you can watch, while laughing, is ask: “Looking back, what do you regret?” And they’ll tell you. Sometimes, as you know, they’ll tell you even if you haven’t asked. Sometimes, even when you’ve specifically requested they not tell you, they’ll tell you.

So: What do I regret? Being poor from time to time? Not really. Working terrible jobs […] Not so much. Do I regret the occasional humiliation? Like once, playing hockey in front of a big crowd, including this girl I really liked, I somehow managed, while falling and emitting this weird whooping noise, to score on my own goalie, while also sending my stick flying into the crowd, nearly hitting that girl? No. I don’t even regret that.

But here’s something I do regret:

In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class. In the interest of confidentiality, her Convocation Speech name will be “ELLEN.” ELLEN was small, shy. She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore. When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.

So she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” — that sort of thing). I could see this hurt her. I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she was trying, as much as possible, to disappear. After awhile she’d drift away, hair-strand still in her mouth. At home, I imagined, after school, her mother would say, you know: “How was your day, sweetie?” and she’d say, “Oh, fine.” And her mother would say, “Making any friends?” and she’d go, “Sure, lots.”

Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it.

And then — they moved. That was it. No tragedy, no big final hazing.

One day she was there, next day she wasn’t.

End of story.

Now, why do I regret that? Why, forty-two years later, am I still thinking about it? Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her. I never said an unkind word to her. In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended her.

But still. It bothers me.

So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it:

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope: Who, in yourlife, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth?

Those who were kindest to you, I bet.

It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.

Now, the million-dollar question: What’s our problem? Why aren’t we kinder?

Here’s what I think:

Each of us is born with a series of built-in confusions that are probably somehow Darwinian. These are: (1) we’re central to the universe (that is, our personal story is the main and most interesting story, the only story, really); (2) we’re separate from the universe (there’s US and then, out there, all that other junk – dogs and swing-sets, and the State of Nebraska and low-hanging clouds and, you know, other people), and (3) we’re permanent (death is real, o.k., sure – for you, but not for me).

Now, we don’t really believe these things – intellectually we know better – but we believe them viscerally, and live by them, and they cause us to prioritize our own needs over the needs of others, even though what we really want, in our hearts, is to be less selfish, more aware of what’s actually happening in the present moment, more open, and more loving.

So, the second million-dollar question: How might we DO this? How might we become more loving, more open, less selfish, more present, less delusional, etc., etc?

Well, yes, good question.

Unfortunately, I only have three minutes left.

So let me just say this. There are ways. You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter. Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation’s good; a frank talk with a dear friend; establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition — recognizing that there have been countless really smart people before us who have asked these same questions and left behind answers for us.

Because kindness, it turns out, is hard — it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include . . . well, everything.

One thing in our favor: some of this “becoming kinder” happens naturally, with age. It might be a simple matter of attrition: as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish — how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be. We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now). Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”

And so, a prediction, and my heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE. If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment. You really won’t care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit. That’s one reason your parents are so proud and happy today. One of their fondest dreams has come true: you have accomplished something difficult and tangible that has enlarged you as a person and will make your life better, from here on in, forever.

Congratulations, by the way.

When young, we’re anxious — understandably — to find out if we’ve got what it takes. Can we succeed? Can we build a viable life for ourselves? But you — in particular you, of this generation — may have noticed a certain cyclical quality to ambition. You do well in high-school, in hopes of getting into a good college, so you can do well in the good college, in the hopes of getting a good job, so you can do well in the good job so you can . . .

And this is actually O.K. If we’re going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously — as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers. We have to do that, to be our best selves.

Still, accomplishment is unreliable. “Succeeding,” whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there’s the very real danger that “succeeding” will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended.

So, quick, end-of-speech advice: Since, according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now. There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness. But there’s also a cure. So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf — seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life.

Do all the other things, the ambitious things — travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality — your soul, if you will — is as bright and shining as any that has ever been. Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Teresa’s. Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.

And someday, in 80 years, when you’re 100, and I’m 134, and we’re both so kind and loving we’re nearly unbearable, drop me a line, let me know how your life has been. I hope you will say: It has been so wonderful.

Congratulations, Class of 2013.

I wish you great happiness, all the luck in the world, and a beautiful summer.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Kind of makes you a little thirsty for a good gulp of Kindness
B O T H
one that refreshes as it renews
some much needed
and appreciated
K I N D N E S S

FALLING UP

October 31, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

https://youtu.be/jJc_GXiYibE

I was captivated by this artist, Yoann Bourgeois and what he does on a trampoline

It kind of reminded me what we think about our lives and more importantly, what we don’t.

If your life is a story, it’s not a story about straight lines. It’s a story about curves, about turns, about stumbles and rebounds

If you’re not moving forward, you’re not living.
If you’re not growing, you’re not living.

Growth is life, Change is life, Stagnation is death. . .

You have to keep moving forward.
You have to keep changing.
You have to keep growing.
That’s what life is.

The path to success is not linear.
It comes with obstacles and challenges.
It goes up and down.

No stairs, no elevator, no worries!
You always have your INNER STRENGTH to forge your own path

So, no matter how many times you fall, NEVER GIVE UP on yourself and always keep pushing forward towards your goals and work on FALLING UP. . .

FALLING IS INEVITABLE. . .
MAKE SURE THAT BOUNCING BACK UPZ
IS TOO. . .

FALLINGS

October 28, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

James Crews is a poet who teaches Poetry at the University at Albany and lives on a organic farm with his husband in Shaftsbury, Vermont. Each Friday he posts a poem, sometimes one of his own that serves as more than just some mere Poetry Prompt. He recently posted this:

I’ve been sitting with this very short but very powerful poem by Jane Hirshfield ever since a dear friend passed it along to me earlier in the week. It speaks to the season so many of us might find ourselves inhabiting, not only that of autumn, but a moment of loss and transition during which we’re asked to accept such changes as necessary, and perhaps even sacred. In this poem, she invites us to see each shedding tree as an icon, “thinned/back to bare wood,/without diminishment.” And there is almost a haiku-like quality to those final three lines that urges us toward deeper contemplation of the richness inherent in these wooden beings. Perhaps what we see as loss and a kind of death each year as fall comes is really just wind and weather having worshipped the trees so much they are returned to their basic essence. In this way, we might reframe any difficult season when we are worn back to our essential selves as holy, worthy of worship for the way such trying times allow us to become something new.

Autumn

by Jane Hirshfield

Again the wind
flakes gold-leaf from the trees
and the painting darkens—
as if a thousand penitents
kissed an icon
till it thinned
back to bare wood,
without diminishment.

Invitation for Writing & Reflection: How might you reframe a difficult season in your own life as sacred or holy, seeing how you were worn back to the truest version of yourself even while in pain?

It prompted me to write in kind:

FALLING

And just like that
Summer fell
into a colorfully crisp confetti
of blazenous colors
that never reached the ground
Flutterings
into what can’t always be planted
but never fails to be garnered in
whatsoevers

that find us all
softly soaringly sheltered
in a cooling uplifting Breath
A heavenly satisfied Sigh

May this Fall Season bring you lots of
Oooooh and A W E

FRIENDLY(LESS)

October 26, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Come on everybody. . .
Let’s break out in a robust chorus of TOY STORY’S
YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND IN ME
o r
did the Pandemic take care of
T H A T,
t o o?

Did the Pandemic Make Us Less Friendly?

A new study observed rapid changes in personality during the pandemic, with people becoming less open, conscientious, agreeable, and extraverted. . .

JOLANTA BURKE Ph.D., is a chartered psychologist specializing in positive psychology and a senior lecturer at the Centre for Positive Psychology and Health at the RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences. She has authored eight books, the latest one The Ultimate Guide to Implementing Wellbeing Programmes for School published by Routledge. She recently wrote an article about what we knew had to be coming after these past few years.

For many of us, some personality traits stay the same throughout our lives, while others change only gradually. However, evidence shows that significant events in our personal lives that induce severe stress or trauma can be associated with more rapid changes in our personalities.

A new study, published in PLOS ONE, suggests the COVID pandemic has indeed triggered much greater shifts in personality than we would expect to have seen naturally over this period. In particular, the researchers found that people were less extroverted, less open, less agreeable, and less conscientious in 2021 and 2022 compared with before the pandemic.

This study included more than 7,000 participants from the U.S., aged between 18 and 109, who were assessed before the pandemic (from 2014 onwards), early in the pandemic in 2020, and then later in the pandemic in 2021 or 2022.

At each time point, participants completed the “Big Five Inventory.” This assessment tool measures personality on a scale across five dimensions: extroversion versus introversion, agreeableness versus antagonism, conscientiousness versus lack of direction, neuroticism versus emotional stability, and openness versus closedness to experience.

There weren’t many changes between pre-pandemic and 2020 personality traits. However, the researchers found significant declines in extroversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness in 2021/2022 compared with before the pandemic. These changes were akin to a decade of normal variation, suggesting the trauma of the COVID pandemic had accelerated the natural process of personality change.

Interestingly, younger adults’ personalities changed the most in the study. They showed marked declines in agreeableness and conscientiousness, and a significant increase in neuroticism in 2021/2022 compared with pre-pandemic. This may be due in part to social anxiety when emerging back into society, having missed out on two years of normality.

Personality and well-being

Many of us became more health-conscious during the pandemic, for example by eating better and doing more exercise. A lot of us sought whatever social connections we could find virtually, and tried to refocus our attention on psychological, emotional, and intellectual growth—for example, by practicing mindfulness or picking up new hobbies.

Nonetheless, mental health and well-being decreased significantly. This makes sense given the drastic changes we went through.

Notably, personality significantly impacts our well-being. For example, people who report high levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness, or extroversion are more likely to experience the highest level of well-being.

So the personality changes detected in this study may go some way to explaining the decrease in well-being we’ve seen during the pandemic.

If we look more closely, the pandemic appears to have negatively affected the following areas:

our ability to express sympathy and kindness toward others (agreeableness);
our capacity to be open to new concepts and willing to engage in novel situations (openness);
our tendency to seek out and enjoy other people’s company (extraversion);
our desire to strive toward our goals, do tasks well, or take responsibilities toward others seriously (conscientiousness).

All of these traits influence our interaction with the environment around us and, as such, may have played a role in our well-being decline. For example, working from home may have left us feeling demotivated and as though our career was going nowhere (lower conscientiousness). This in turn may have affected our well-being by making us feel more irritable, depressed, or anxious.

What next. . . ?

Over time, our personalities usually change in a way that helps us adapt to aging and cope more effectively with life events. In other words, we learn from our life experiences and this subsequently impacts our personality. As we age, we generally see increases in self-confidence, self-control, and emotional stability.

However, participants in this study recorded changes in the opposite direction to the usual trajectory of personality change. This is understandable given that we faced an extended period of difficulties, including constraints on our freedoms, lost income, and illness. All these experiences have evidently changed us—and our personalities.

This study provides us with some very useful insights into the impacts of the pandemic on our psyche. These impacts may subsequently influence many aspects of our lives, such as well-being.

Knowledge allows us to make choices. So you might like to take the time to reflect on your experiences over the past few years, and how these personality changes may have affected you.

Any changes may well have protected you during the height of the pandemic. However, it’s worth asking yourself how useful these changes are now that the acute phase of the pandemic is behind us. Do they still serve you well, or could you try to rethink your perspective?

QUESTIONS WORTH EMBRACING
as we go about
not so much discovering
A n S w E r S
as actually
LIVING THEM
in new ways. . .

As we
Caring Catalysts
help others along
Their W a Y s

ALL-WAYS A SEASON

October 24, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

In this era, where a lot of people are becoming more and more indifferent towards one another, kindness is coming at an expensive price. It is not often that you see people showing kindness towards others. BUT. . .I found this video recently where there was a prepared set of different videos to prove that wrong. Throughout the video, you can watch Santa providing warm clothes to homeless people or older woman praising stranger for doing cool tricks with skateboard and many others. As always I hope this afflicts the Caring Catalyst in you that by merely watching the video, you will realize that kindness in humanity hasn’t been lost completely and there are still people out there ready to show acts of kindness not only to their close ones, but also to any random strangers and make them emotional or even cry by their acts of kindness. THAT it’ll inspire you to bring a special warmth to Another’s CHILL. . .Enjoy watching the video. . .

AND REMEMBER:

A DIFFERENT KIND OF PRAYER

October 21, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Sometimes the most powerful prayers
come from unbowed heads
open eyes
and wordless expressions
that get shouted from the
h e a r t
what a mouth can’t whisper
and what dirty unfolded hands
can’t begin to grasp

Sometimes prayer
come askew
not quite picture-perfect

with a new ending:

Millions of people pray the Serenity Prayer, which is based on the Lord’s Prayer, but most have never read the last eight lines to the prayer:

“Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. . .
Amen.”

That’s where the power is!
Power comes when you
surrender anything
you’ve been trying to control;
And that will lead you to living a life of serenity. . .
or
You can try it
YOUR WAY
A Different Kind of Prayer
maybe
but the purest
of them all:
YOUR PRAYER

THE KINDNESS FACTOR

October 19, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

How 30 Days of Kindness

Made Me a

Better Person

is an article that Cecilia Meis published back in January 2017. . .but it couldn’t be more timely than if it was written one moment before you started reading this Blog post. . .

Cecilia begins the article by admitting: “I don’t know his name, but his messy, shoulder-length hair hides a pair of hauntingly blue eyes. It’s a warm September day in New York, but he’s sitting under a mountain of ragged bits of clothing, towels and blankets. In one hand, he loosely holds a piece of string attached to the neck of a small, mangy-looking dog lying next to him. In the other hand, he clutches a nearly empty bottle of cheap vodka. His bright eyes briefly glance at me without recognition or focus. I don’t know what makes me pause.

My initial thought is to give him money, though I just avoided eye contact with the last 10 people, sputtering that I didn’t have any. And my mom’s words come to mind: “He’ll only spend it on drugs or alcohol.” So I turn to the closest Nathan’s stand and buy him a hot dog, chips and soda.

When I approach him, I feel awkward, my donation insignificant. As if I’m offering a glass of water to a man trapped in a burning building. Is he more of a ketchup or mustard guy? The absurd thought turns my face hot. What comfort will a nutritionally deficient meal with a side of dehydration be to a man who sleeps on cement and spends a life generally invisible to the world?

But when he sees my outstretched hands, he smiles, dropping the bottle and leash to accept the meal with shaky fingers. We don’t exchange any words, but his smile lingers with me.

Can random acts of kindness
actually increase and sustain happiness. . . ?

Cecilia goes on to tell us that it’s only the sixth day of her month-long challenge to find the joy in making someone’s day every day, and up until now, she had felt like a failure. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but rather questioning whether seemingly small gestures were actually accomplishing my goal. Can we really find joy by giving to those around us? Can random acts of kindness actually increase and sustain happiness?

Turns out they can, but there are exceptions. To find lasting happiness through generosity requires a suppression of our ego, an analysis of our motives and a reflection on how these acts alter our perception of the world.

How Generosity Benefits Us

As children, our parents tell us to make up for misbehaving by doing something nice for someone. As adults, we help friends move into a new house; we bring hot meals to new mothers; we might even donate time or money to local charities a few times a year. After all, it’s naturally uncomfortable to see a friend (or stranger) suffering or in need. Call it karma or mojo, but these acts are generally reciprocated. We receive tax breaks, returned meals and favors, thank-you notes. Tit for tat.

But what about pure, altruistic generosity, without the expectation of receiving something in return? What about being a true Caring Catalyst just to be a mere Caring Catalyst? Some researchers argue this type of generosity doesn’t exist. But Cecilia set out to see whether she could learn to give without the promise of getting. She made lists of various kind acts and placed reminders on her bathroom mirror, her work computer, her car dashboard: Make someone’s day today!

Cecilia’s first act of kindness was buying coffee for the woman behind her in the drive-thru lane at Starbucks. In fact, her first few acts were buying something for someone—lunch for an old friend, a copy of her favorite book to a stranger—but they didn’t make her feel much of anything. The recipients were grateful, but she wondered if she was actually making their day, and was that really boosting her happiness?

At the end of each day, she reflected how being kind made her feel. She dug for tangible proof of her growth. Some days felt more significant: buying cough syrup for the two coughing boys in pajamas at the pharmacy, for example. Their father, who had dark circles under his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose as his credit card was declined a second time. She said couldn’t tell whether he was more embarrassed or grateful, but she’d like to think he slept a little easier that night, and left the pharmacy feeling pretty good.

Countless studies tout the physical, mental and social benefits of receiving generosity. But until the 1980s, the effects on the giver were relatively unknown. Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., a psychology professor at UC Riverside and a leading happiness researcher, conducted a study in 2004 to determine whether committing five random acts of kindness would increase positive emotions. The short-term study revealed promising results with heightened levels of positive emotions, particularly in the participants who carried out all five acts of kindness on the same day. Spreading the acts over a week, Lyubomirsky theorized, led to a repetitive and often unoriginal pattern that either didn’t change the level of positive emotions or, in some cases, even lowered it.

Admittedly, Cecilia said she experienced some form of generosity fatigue around the second week of her challenge. It’s easy to float through the day wrapped up in our own heads, focusing only on what directly impacts us. Consciously searching for new and different ways to improve someone else’s day was more difficult than than maybe any of us could possibly anticipate. We just don’t face that challenge often in society. But then when Cecilia admitted that when she did the nice deed, she nearly always felt a boost of happiness afterward. A 2009 study by social psychologist Jorge A. Barraza, Ph.D., and neuroscientist Paul J. Zak, Ph.D., attributes this to a release of oxytocin, the feel-good chemical in the brain.

According to the study, when people feel empathetic, they release 47 percent more oxytocin into their hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for emotion and memory. The participants felt the urge to act generously—particularly toward strangers. As Matthieu Ricard, Ph.D., a Buddhist monk and best-selling author, writes in Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill: “When we are happy, the feeling of self-importance is diminished and we are more open to others.” Studies show people who have experienced a positive event in the past hour are more likely to help strangers in need. This explains why we help people, even at a cost to ourselves.

In the late ’80s, the term “helper’s high” was used to describe the euphoria feeling associated with volunteering. Beyond happiness, generous people also experienced enhanced creativity, flexibility, resilience and being open to new information. They’re more collaborative at work; they’re able to solve complex problems more easily and they form solid, healthy relationships with others.

Generosity allows us to forget our own self-importance.

As Stephen G. Post, Ph.D., happiness researcher and founder of The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, writes, “It may be people who live generous lives soon become aware that in the giving of self lies the unsought discovery of self as the old selfish pursuit of happiness is subjectively revealed as futile and short-sighted.” Generosity allows us to forget our own self-importance, even temporarily, and look outward to uplift those around us who, in turn, often uplift those around them.

Shawn Achor, a Harvard-trained researcher and The Happiness Guy at SUCCESS, calls this the ripple effect. Our behavior, he discovered, is literally contagious. “Our habits, attitudes and actions spread through a complicated web of connections to infect those around us,” he writes. That’s why we sync up with our best friends, often finishing each other’s sentences and reading each other’s thoughts. It’s also why one negative attitude can spread like a disease across an office and infect everyone’s mood.

So are happier people more generous, or does generosity make us happier? Rather than thinking of it as a cause-and-effect relationship, consider happiness and generosity as intertwining entities. “Generating and expressing kindness quickly dispels suffering and replaces it with lasting fulfillment,” writes Ricard, the Buddhist monk. “In turn the gradual actualization of genuine happiness allows kindness to develop as the natural reflection of inner joy.” Helping behavior increases positive emotions, which increases our sense of purpose, regulates stress, and improves short- and long-term health. All of that contributes to a heightened level of happiness, causing us to feel more generous, creating a circle of happiness and generosity.

Why We Aren’t Generous All the Time

Cecilia admitted she failed twice during her month-long challenge. What began as a positive and energizing morning was quickly derailed—a negative social media post, a complaining text, an overwhelmed co-worker. she would refocus her thoughts and tried to make this her kind act for the day. Maybe her questions are our golden questions: What if I can turn this person’s day around? What if I can help him see the positive side of his situation?

What happened? According to Paul Bloom, professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University and author of Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, she had confused empathy with compassion, resulting in empathetic distress and burnout. Empathy requires feeling what others feel, “to experience, as much as you can, the terrible sorrow and pain,” whereas compassion involves concern and a desire to help without the need to mirror someone else’s anguish.

It turns out, you can be too nice. Psychologists Vicki Helgeson and Heidi Fritz created a questionnaire revealing that women are more likely to put others’ needs before their own, often resulting in asymmetrical relationships as well as an increased risk of depression and anxiety. When we experience empathetic burnout, we often shy away from generosity altogether. Feeling taken advantage of, we retreat inward.

Researchers have also theorized that every kind act is ultimately done to benefit ourselves in some way, even subconsciously. This concept, coined “universal egoism,” offers explanations that are easier to accept than true altruism: a desire to help others void of selfish motives. For example, there are multiple situations that can be initially perceived as true altruism but at its core, the kind act is governed by selfish motives. Ben Dean, Ph.D., psychologist and founder of MentorCoach in Maryland, offers three such examples:

It’s a natural response to feel uncomfortable when we see someone suffering. But rather than help in order to ease their suffering, we help them to ease our own discomfort.
In an attempt to protect our fragile egos and reputations, we don’t want to be viewed as insensitive, heartless, mean, etc. So we help others even when we might not feel an urge to improve their well-being.
We perceive there to be some form of personal benefit from the act, either short- or long-term.

The question remains:
Is there a truly selfless act of kindness?

The question remains: Is there a truly selfless act of kindness? And does it even matter where our motivations lie? The homeless man in New York still ate a hot meal, and the two little boys at the pharmacy didn’t stay up all night coughing. Isn’t that what matters?

We aren’t consistently generous for a multitude of reasons, but in the traditional corporate setting, the prevailing enemy of generosity is the fear of appearing naïve. (And the possibility of going broke.) After all, isn’t the nice guy the one who finishes last? So we become “Givers” as Adam Grant Ph.D., details in his best-seller Give and Take. In the modern workplace, we are no longer solely evaluated on our work performance, but rather on how we interact as a cohesive unit and how we contribute to the organization as a whole. In fact, Grant’s research reveals this new business landscape paves the way for Givers to succeed and Takers to be left behind. By helping others, we help ourselves.

The important thing to remember is that Givers—especially those predisposed to putting others’ needs before their own—need to know their boundaries. Grant says it begins with distinguishing generosity from its three other attributes: timidity, availability and empathy.

At the risk of sounding cliché, Cecilia admitted that her month of generosity did make her happier. Something about waking up and consciously planning to act selflessly lightened my step and made the morning drag easier to bear. Something about a stranger flashing a smile (albeit a confused one) as she handed them a dog-eared copy of her favorite memoir gave her an energy boost that a triple-shot latte never could.

For a precious hour or so every day, the fear, anxiety, stress and doubt of daily life didn’t plague her thoughts. She stated that she briefly forgot about herself, and it was intoxicating. Friends responded to her seemingly arbitrary good mood with confused laughs.When did being happy without reason become a cause for concern? she wondered. . . ?

Maybe, she thought, her heart was in the right place when she gave the blue-eyed man a hot meal. But maybe, she wondered, her ego was directing her actions that night in the pharmacy checkout lane. And maybe she avoided generosity toward her close friends and co-workers because it was more difficult. Buying coffee for a stranger is easy, detached and allows for a clean exit. Gently pushing a friend to divulge her source of anxiety after she says “I’m fine” is not. After all, altruism and honest self-reflection take time and practice.

Ultimately, thirty days of generosity didn’t make Cecilia a different person, but she did feel different. She didn’t actively look for ways to be generous, but noticed the opportunities anyway. Like the sticky note residue on her bathroom mirror, she could see gentle impressions of her growth where she least expect it: during rush hour, when she gave the benefit of the doubt to the woman cutting into her lane; after a long day of work, when she made time for the struggling friend who needed to talk; and, most important, in the moments when she forgot herself and realized the joy to be found in caring for the people around me.

SO. . .
What does this have to do with us?
N O T H I N G
u n l e s s
we make it
SOMETHING

Go Ahead. . .
GIVE IT A GO
Blame it on the Season
. . .the One that’s Coming
and in essence, never ending
UNLESS YOU SAY SO
TAKE THE 30 DAY KINDNESS CHALLENGE
and
PROVE IT. . .

MAKE MISTAKES

October 17, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

If our Lives are like Books
We no doubt have many
LINES
PARAGRAPHS
PAGES
CHAPTERS
LARGE SECTIONS
we would rip out
So others would never see them
and we just might be able to forget them
b u t
if we could just learn from our mistakes
(especially the ones we make repeatedly)
we just might find
that we have no regrets
but some
MONUMENTAL MEMORIES. . .

ALL OF YOU

October 14, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

I’ve been thinking about Bruce Springsteen because of a quick snippet I read from National Speakers Association’s, Lou Heckler. . .

In one of the books I’ve been reading lately, he is quoted as saying, “Every show has to be the best show I’ve ever done.” Over the years I’ve grown a little weary of people, no matter what their business, complaining, “That’s not my job” or “They aren’t paying me enough” or “That’s above my pay grade.” In my mind excellence is not above ANYBODY’S pay grade and the most important job we all have — management and staff alike — is putting forth our maximum effort every day.

Someone once told me he challenges his people to treat every customer as if they were your beloved grandmother. You’d certainly want her to be pleased. Another one of the many speakers in National Speakers Association, Scott McKain, says all business is show business. If he’s right — and I kind of think he is — let’s make a commitment this today, N O W, to make every transaction, every experience, every person to person encounter we have feel like the best show we’ve ever done.

“The Boss” does it, so why can’t we?

When you give the
ALL OF YOU
EVERYONE WILL GET THE
BEST OF YOU. . .