The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

A KINDLY KIND-OF-NESS

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It’s a great Friday Blog Question:
IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE KIND TO EVERYTHING.        .       .         ?
or to poetically put it:
CAN KINDNESS BE BROUGHT TO AN EVERYTHINGNESS.          .          .

Driving
Defensively
Looking for hazards
Watching for water filled potholes
He appeared across my windshield
Inside
Traversing it’s clear continent
Owning it
Like an unexplored universe
Not yet known
Discovered
Far from knowing
He could be exterminated
Crushed not so carefully
From a runaway McDonald’s napkin
Snuggled between the car seat
But when arriving safely to my destination
We both escaped from unknown dangers
Never to be seen/known
By the other
Still alive
For a time
A  Kindly Kind-of-ness
Without a sacred
all relieving
Gratitude
Unoffered
But received
(With a Praise to be to the Universe Creator for not allowing it to be snake)

NEIGHBOR (WON’T YOU BE MINE?)

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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

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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

THE MASKS WE WEAR

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THE CALENDAR MAY SAY
N O V E M B E R  2
but seriously.            .            .
IS HALLOWEEN EVER TRULY OVER

It could be argued
s u c c e s s f u l l y
that Halloween is the one day we celebrate
3 6 5
days a year.     .     .

Six Reasons Why Humans Wear Masks

THEY SAY:
Today, we wear masks to celebrate Halloween and ward off disease—but the mask has deep roots in human history. Here’s what masks mean to us.

 JEREMY ADAM SMITH  edits the GGSC’s online magazine, Greater Good. He is also the author or coeditor of five books, including The Daddy Shift, Are We Born Racist?, and (most recently) The Gratitude Project: How the Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for Resilience, Optimism, and the Greater Good. Before joining the GGSC, Jeremy was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. You can follow him on Twitter! He did some digging around the Halloween bin and found out some things about our Mask-wearing ways

This Halloween, now a couple of days GONE, people in many places were wearing two kinds of masks: one to be scary, the other to protect themselves and others against COVID-19.

Yes, it was another pandemic Halloween—and while the masks we wear might seem weird, the really weird stuff is happening inside our heads. Masks have roots going back to at least Neolithic times, and they’re capable of pushing some deep evolutionary buttons, triggering fear, laughter, aggression, awe, and many more emotions. That’s a feature, not a bug, of masks.

Here’s a rundown of the reasons why human beings have crafted and worn masks for at least ten thousand years. These insights go a long way to explaining the way we celebrate Halloween, but they also suggest why masks have become such an emotional flashpoint in the COVID-19 pandemic.

1. For religious ritual

The 9,000-year-old mask found in the Hebron hills by a settler going for a walk.
Credit: Antiquities Theft Prevention Unit, Israel Antiquities Authority

When did human beings start wearing masks?

It’s hard to say, because the archeological record is so inherently murky; masks made in prehistoric times of leather or plants could not survive the centuries. In 2018, an Israeli settler found what is believed to be the oldest known mask in the world in the West Bank. Estimated to be ten millennia old, the stone face was almost certainly used in religious ritual as humanity transitioned from hunting and gathering to growing our own food—probably as part of ancestor worship, according to archeologists.

Similarly, in the Egypt of the pharaohs, masks were used to connect the dead with the living, making them a kind of conduit between this world and the next. Mummies were fitted with masks in the likeness of the deceased so that the soul could locate the right body, when the time came. Priests wore the heads of animals who represented their gods: a jackal for Anubis, god of death; a cat for Bastet, goddess of fertility and sexuality; a bird for Thoth, god of knowledge and of writing, which was then a cutting-edge technology. Throughout African history, masks have played a role in religious ceremonies. The Yoruba, Igbo, and Edo cultures of West Africa all held masquerades to commune with ancestors.

The Native Americans who lived along the west coast of North America devised incredibly clever, two-layered mechanical masks in which an outer animal face moved to reveal a human image. In other words, the mask was a way to reveal the essential oneness of humanity and the natural world.

2. In hunting

11,000-year-old Mesolithic deer skull headdresses at Cambridge University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.11,000-year-old Mesolithic deer skull headdresses at Cambridge University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. © Josh Murfitt / MAA

That human-animal connection led many ancient peoples to wear masks in hunting.

There is some evidence—mainly in petroglyphs—that early Stone Age hunters wore them in stalking prey. According to anthropologists, this was in part for camouflage; sometimes, the masks were made from the hide or fur of the prey to disguise the human scent.

However, masks that resembled the animal being hunted served psychological purposes, as well. They may have helped the hunter think like their prey. Hunters wore the masks in rituals performed before the hunt, and in dances and theatrical productions depicting their success. In some cultures, the masks were used to give the slain animal’s spirit a home, so that it would not return from the dead seeking revenge.

It’s a tradition that continues to this day, when hunting face masks help to keep the hunter warm and provide camouflage. While today’s hunting manuals may frame the mask as a practical necessity, it’s hard to avoid associations with atavistic practices.

3. In wars and in sports

Masks are ubiquitous in both ancient and modern warfare. As in hunting, they can serve two purposes, protective and psychological.

Helmets and masks might seem to have an obvious mission in warfare: to protect the human brain inside of them from enemies who aim to stop the brain from functioning. But the archeological and historical evidence suggests that the more important purpose was to scare the enemy.

War paint is a kind of mask, though it does little to protect the warrior. War masks existed in ancient Greece, Rome, and China, but they were often mounted on shields or armor instead of over faces. Japanese samuraiwore grimacing menpō—half masks covering the face below the eyes.

Today, the gas mask is the one we associate most closely with modern warfare. This image emerged with the use of chemical weapons during the first world war. Though its purpose is protective, the image still strikes fear into our hearts—and the gas mask is widely used as a symbol of apocalyptic warfare.

After that war, artists created “broken face” masks depicting war-ruined visages for books and films to help reveal its cost. Today, video games like “Call of Duty” feature a “ghost mask”—a skull over the face—but you can now buy a real one for cosplaying, paintball, or airsoft combat simulations.

In modern sports, fencers, baseball catchers, and skiers all wear masks intended to be protective. But the masks can still tap into feelings of fear by merely obscuring the face of an opponent, making them seem inhuman—which is why some hockey goalie masks are designed to look creepy, calling to mind characters from horror and superhero movies.

4. For performances

Onnamen are wooden masks of female faces, worn by men, which have been used since the 15th century in Japanese Noh theater.
Credit: Japanese Clothing

As we’ve seen so far, masks are fundamentally performative even in the most deadly real-life situations. It therefore makes intuitive sense that masks would migrate from religious ceremonies and warfare onto stages and ballrooms.

The theatrical mask emerged in the Greek city states, according to most evidence. At first, simple masks of goatskin or linen enabled priests to speak with the voice of a god in the temple, but when playwright-poets like Thespis started depicting such scenes on the stage, they became a literary device. As time went on, the masks of Greek theater became increasingly artistic and elaborate, often with built-in megaphones so that the audience could hear the actors.

Later in human history, masks appeared in Medieval “mystery plays” and the Renaissance-era commedia dell’arte, which applied Roman imagery to satirize contemporary manners. Lacquered, gilded masks are inherent to Noh drama in Japan, and they grew to encompass five distinct types: old persons, goddesses, gods, devils, and goblins. Within those types, masks are color-coded to characterize qualities like corruption and righteousness—foreshadowing modern efforts to scientifically map emotions on the human face.

5. During celebrations

Credit: Sean Fleming at Getty Imgaes

Inevitably, masks stepped back off the stage into the balls of Venice and Vienna, religious bacchanals like Mardi Gras—and celebrations like Halloween. Celtic pagans came to believe that ghosts came out as winter arrived, and they started wearing masks outside to avoid being recognized by dead relatives and enemies. The Roman Catholic Church co-opted these autumnal pagan beliefs into All Hallows or All Saints’ Day, which was intended to honor all the saints.

Today, secular Halloween is a big business and an annual part of many cultures. You can buy a costume off the rack or you can make your own—and on Halloween night, you can encounter anything on the street from a ghost in a simple white sheet to characters from the latest Hollywood blockbusters.

It’s all good fun, but behind the monster-masks deeper, darker traditions lurk. On Halloween, if you know what to look for, you can see masks that echo earlier times in human history, when we saw them as ways to survive violence and starvation, and to commune with gods, spirits, and animals.

6. For protection from disease

The masks of the Iroquois False Face Society were used in healing rituals.
Credit: Werner Forman / Getty Images

Masks have always been used to fight disease, though the reasoning has evolved quite a bit over the centuries.

In some cultures, for example, members would wear masks to drive disease out of their village. Members of the False Face Society of the Iroquois people wore grotesque masks made of horsehair and metal to drive away the demons of disease; there are similar traditions throughout Asia.

When the bubonic plague swept Europe in the Middle Ages, doctors supposedly wore beak-like masks filled with herbs and liquids intended (in some vague way) to protect them against “spoiled air” from the East that many thought caused the epidemic. In the 19th century, this instinct to cover the face against disease got some scientific validation through the work of scientists like Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, and (later) Carl Friedrich Flügge.

However, surgical masks were not widely used until the early 20th century, and they were not standard until the 1940s. During the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918–19—which killed an estimated 50 million people—masks became a point of conflict in western American cities. The “Anti-Mask League” formed in San Francisco, with members claiming that mask mandates infringed on their personal freedom.

“Some people argue against them because they say that they create fear in the public, and that we want to keep people calm,” notes historian Nancy Bristow, author of American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic. Many of the same arguments emerged one hundred years later, when COVID-19 reached the United States—but the difference between then and now is that today, we have robust scientific consensus that widespread, correct use of masks prevents the spread of disease.

Unfortunately, all the evidence in the world can’t necessarily overcome the emotional distrust and anxiety masks induce in some people. Given what we know about the history of masks, this isn’t surprising. It’s also the case that the masks we wear to protect each other from COVID-19 break the link between our upper and lower faces, which makes it harder for us to identify people and their emotions. That can create an additional layer of anxiety.

Even so, studies conducted during the pandemic find that masks can actually increase social trust, because, write one group of researchers, “facemasks are taken as a proxy of social compliance and caring.” For that to happen, however, people need to understand that masks work as one way to help stop COVID-19.

On this year’s All Hallows Day, and now all the ones to follow, we’ll once again walk through a space where the mythical past meets the scientific present in the form of the masks we wear. These might not be the Halloweens we want, but they could end up being the most meaningful in our lifetimes.

R     E     M     E     M     B     E    R

Halloween Night

8:01 on a Halloween night
is a lonely time
Porch lights are switched off
Front doors are closed
and Jack o’lanterns hold candles
that flicker not much warmth or light
as it catches the wisp of a candy wrapper
its contents just eaten but barely digested
long before making it home
The wrapper tumbleweeds down the street
not much remembering the sweet preciousness
it once held and protected so dearly
Like most  discarded wrappings
it enjoys the freedom as much as what
it once covered

FRIENDLY(LESS)

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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

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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:

THE KINDNESS FACTOR

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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?

How 30 Days of Kindness Made Me a Better Person

Related: How to Make Others Feel Significant

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?

How 30 Days of Kindness Made Me a Better Person

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.

How 30 Days of Kindness Made Me a Better Person

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?

How 30 Days of Kindness Made Me a Better Person

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

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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.          .          .

A RATE NOT NEEDING TO RISE

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U.S. Suicide Rate Rose 4%

in 2021

After a Two-Year Decline

Isabelle Row, a crisis line specialist, at The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD, in Houston, Texas, on March 7, 2022.
Brandon Thibodeaux—The New York Times/Redux
I wish this was an article never ARTICULATED let alone published but grateful for the awareness that TARA LAW  from Time Magazine as she brings mirrow to face.

This past Monday, we celebrated more than just Columbus Day; it was National Mental Health Day.  .   .or maybe THAT IS TODAY.     .    .Or TOMORROW, or any day we wake up and more than just think but KNOW something is wrong and that every person we meet must might be having the worst day of their lives and we can really do something about that!
Deaths by suicide increased 4% in 2021 compared to 2020, ending a two-year decline, according to provisional data released by the National Center for Health Statistics on Sept. 30. A total of 47,646 deaths were recorded as suicides during 2021, at a rate of about 14 deaths per 100,000 people.

The largest increases were among men—especially young men. The age-adjusted suicide rate rose by about 3% among males in 2021 and by 2% among females (although the increase among females was not statistically significant) compared to 2020. The greatest increase among males—8%—occurred among ages 15 to 24. In 2020, suicide was the third leading cause of death for people in that age group, and the second leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 14 and 25 to 34. Past research has found that the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly difficult for young people, who have been found to be more likely than older adults to report symptoms of depression and anxiety during the crisis.

Suicide deaths in the U.S. decreased during the 1980s and 90s, but they have been generally increasing (except for slight declines during some years) for the last two decades. In 2021, just 1% fewer people died by suicide than in 2018, which is the year with the highest suicide rate since 1942.

Experts emphasize that the causes of suicide are complex, and there are many risk factors. Though the report does not speculate about what may have contributed to increased rates in 2021, other researchers have warned that fallout from the pandemic—such as job loss, increased stress, and social isolation—could create a “perfect storm” that may contribute to an increase in suicides.

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental-health crisis or contemplating suicide, call or text 988. In emergencies, call 911, or seek care from a local hospital or mental health provider.
(Read More: There’s a New Number to Call for Mental-Health Crises: 988)

Unless we are helping Others Rise
WE ARE ALL FALLING.          .          .

THE OPPOSITE GAME

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THERE ARE NO WORDS.                  .                       .
we say
and then.       .      .
All we do is use
w       O           r        D              s
to say
THERE ARE NO WORDS.            .            .
We’re walking
talking
DICTIONARIES
not so much looking for definitions
as for real, living
M e A n I n G s
and dare we try
GIVING THEM

Wait.            .            What.            .             .                 ?
Did we just play
THE OPPOSITE GAME
(or have we never stopped)

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man