Racial Intolerance – Black and White or Fifty Shades of Gray?

Though written in 2016, racial intolerance is still so sadly alive today.

A friend and I were discussing the 2016 Oscars and he wanted to know what I thought about the constant references made about the fact that no blacks were nominated for any awards. A cloud of reminders had hovered over the entire event, and while I realized Chris Rock brought even more attention to the fact that no blacks were nominated, I wondered why the discussion was still so rampant. Why we are still discussing something that should have been resolved a long time ago?

Why, of all the races and colors in the world, do blacks appear to be the ones still struggling the most? After all these years, after all the strides we think we have made, after all the contributions Martin Luther King, Jr. and others have made to elevate the black population to a level where whites would accept them, blacks still seem to have difficulty assimilating. And yet, they have many amazing role models, from Oprah Winfrey to Maya Angelou to President Barack Obama to Kanye West – OOPS!

In all seriousness, I can’t figure out why blacks are the ones who most often appear to be ostracized – well, over the years, anyway, because, move over, Blacks, make room for Muslims and Syrians today. Yes, Americans are now targeting Muslims and Syrians. Oh, and Mexicans. We don’t want them in our country either! 

The first five years of my life, I lived in an ethnically diverse neighborhood. From our apartment in the Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago’s south side, we spent nearly every day walking through a neighborhood filled with so much diversity, Hyde Park looked like a mini-version of the world. I saw differences from the day I was born, but I was oblivious to the torment whites inflicted on people of color, because I never saw it back then.

Over the years other ethnic groups have been similarly ostracized – the Jews, the Japanese, the Irish, the Polish – but the Jews, the Japanese, the Irish, and the Polish worked hard to achieve assimilation and to erase from the minds of the American people the negative stereotypes white people carried about them. Without forming organizations that ostracized everyone else, without standing on platforms voicing their complaints, they assimilated without notice. Though blacks weren’t the only ones who had been enslaved, we heard mostly about how whites enslaved blacks. I don’t remember other ethnic groups voicing their complaints as loudly.

So what’s going on? Does integrity or work ethics play a role? Is the white mind flawed in some way, so that deeply embedded within each of us is a KKK gene? I certainly hope not. And why were blacks delegated to represent the bottom of the gene pool, while Asians were placed on the highest platform of respect?

Maybe a lot of what is happening in America has to do with the mindset of the American people – or Karma. When we bullied this country away from the Native Americans, we sent them off to live on reservations. Why did the Native Americans accept their “lot” in life? Were they duped into believing that these future land stealers, I mean landowners, had the Native Americans’ best interests in mind, or were the Native Americans attracted to these pioneers’ introduction of greed and politics?

Of all the people in the United States, I would have thought the Native Americans would have rightfully considered an uprising, but if they did, I never read about it and if they thought about it, none of us heard about it, and they never followed through with one. Were any Native American actors chosen as contenders for an Academy Award?  What about Japanese actors? Were any Polish actors nominated? I don’t know. I never heard any complaints other than those from the black community.

One problem from which many of us suffer is that we tend to think of whites as opposite of blacks. So whites assume the superior role, while we shove blacks to the bottom – again. We call blacks African Americans as if all of them are from Africa and all whites are considered to be just Americans as if we all come from the United States. But even our President isn’t all black! Like our president, not all blacks are all black, and yet, if even only 6.25% of a person is black, we call him or her black. And most of us whites are not Native Americans! As a matter of fact, if we were to return to our country of origin, we might find that move to be impossible. After all, how does one move back to several countries of origin? 

I sometimes wonder if blacks are responsible for perpetuating the black/white controversy by constantly reminding us of every negative thing that has happened – and continues to happen – to them over the years. Or is the white community responsible for proliferating the stereotype? Media contributes to the picture of blacks being disemboweled by whites and some law enforcement groups jump on the hate bandwagon by targeting blacks as well. Why not? They’re easy to spot, aren’t they? But aren’t Asians too? Why did our hatred of the Japanese end so swiftly?

Another obvious problem is that many whites teach their children to be racist. Kids learn from their parents, their caregivers, their teachers, the media, and their neighbors that blacks are supposed to be ostracized. But white children don’t automatically hate black children, just as black children don’t automatically hate white children, though black children learn how to be racist too. Kids learn hatred. They aren’t born hating. And when little white children identify black children as targets of hatred, they tend to notice that black skin is easier to spot in a country filled with lighter skin. We teach our children what to see and hear. 

How easily we become deceived into believing everything we hear and everything we think we see. I remember watching The Oprah Winfrey Show many years ago when Jane Elliott appeared on her show. Elliott ran a social experiment by separating blue-eyed individuals from brown-eyed individuals. From the moment audience members entered the studio, both groups were separated from each other. The brown-eyed members of the audience were treated with utmost respect while blue-eyed members were treated poorly. 

Jane discussed why brown-eyed people were superior in nature to blue-eyed people and she supplied “irrefutable proof” to back up her claims. Of course, none of what she said was true, but audience members fell for it and even provided their own proof to back her up. 

Are we all so vulnerable we choose to believe lies? And are we all so eager to put ourselves in superior positions when we consider others to be more vulnerable than we are? Why do we automatically assume that what we hear and see is true, especially when the person delivering the message appears to have some authority? I would have thought that Oprah’s program might have impacted people to behave differently. Maybe it impacted only those people who watched it. 

From that program, I learned that most of us prefer to have others think for us rather than take the effort to think for ourselves.Why are we always so much more comfortable playing the role of a follower than we are of being a leader? Look at Hitler and his followers! How many people stood up to him and his idiocy? How many people still follow him? No one race is any better or any worse than any other race. We have got to stop looking at each other as enemies!

Recently I saw a video of two little black girls, who were probably around 5 or 6, encouraged by a 12-year-old black boy to hurt a little 3-year-old white girl while he taped the bully session (the incident took place a couple years ago in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is heartbreaking to watch, but you can see it HERE if you want to watch it). 

Though the 12-year-old who uploaded the video to the Internet, called it, “When white people piss black people off part 1,” both fathers – of the 12-year-old and the 3-year old – claimed the situation was not racially motivated. All bullies involved were disciplined, and the bullies' dad apologized to the victim's dad. But if this event was not racially motivated, why then did the videographer give it a racial title? Perhaps, because he was only 12, he hoped it would become viral and he would gain some kind of fame.

Have race relations improved over the past hundred years? If you watched the Academy Awards you would think not. So let’s take one city, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and see if race relations have improved there. Yes, race riots run rampant in other cities as well, but in this particular city, we saw a race massacre occur on May 31-June 1 in 1921. 91 years later, on April 6, 2012 (Good Friday), in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we saw a race riot. What we often see is whites antagonize while blacks retaliate. 

Did race relations improve when President Barack Obama moved into the White House? Obviously not. Blacks and many whites hoped it would, but because of the masked hatred so many whites have for blacks, Obama’s presidency only fueled the fire that already burned beneath way too many whites. We are a country filled with bullies who want to uplift ourselves while stomping on those we consider to be beneath us!

My personal belief is that nobody is born a bully, but once you become a bully, your sense of who you are becomes warped. You enjoy the high you get from and the power you feel by inflicting pain on somebody more vulnerable than you are. You don’t recognize what you have become, but what you have become is a coward! When we encourage our children to bully other children who are more vulnerable than they are, we are teaching our children how to be cowards!

And yes, I believe a lot of white people are cowards! Why do we act so afraid of blacks? Why do so many of us target them with our hatred? And why don’t we stand up for our own personal beliefs? Why do we cripple ourselves with learned hatred?

I wonder what would happen if we took parents or caregivers out of the equation and gave children an opportunity to learn about each other through play (not in a Frederick II, Emperor of Germany, type of experiment when the emperor desired to discover the language babies would speak if they were left alone {they all died}, but in a joyful social setting)? Might we discover that children of all ethnic backgrounds actually get along? 

Look at any playground and you’ll see kids of all colors playing together without prejudice. Parents, caregivers, and teachers are responsible for teaching children how to hate – and how to love. Why not teach them how to love – themselves and each other?

We all want to see an end to bullying, but we don’t look at ourselves as being one of those bullies, and many of us are! If we intentionally teach our children how to hate people who are not like us, we bully our children! We are teaching our children how to hate! Do we really want our kids to grow up in a country filled with hatred? Is hatred the legacy we want to leave behind for them?

On the other end of the spectrum we see people being bullied, and we consistently emphasize prejudice and hatred, whether we speak those words aloud or act insidiously prejudiced against people – again – not like us. If everybody was like us, we’d be clones of each other!

Can we improve race relations in our country or for the Academy next year? Is the answer to the problem of inclusion in the Oscars that black parents who want their kids to become black actors and win awards to educate black students to write black screenplays, hire black actors, and join the Academy of Arts and Sciences? Or am I suggesting they just shut up about what is happening to them and stop emphasizing racial hatred?  

When Mike Wallace interviewed Morgan Freeman during a 2005, 60 Minutes television show, Wallace asked Freeman: “How are we going to get rid of racism until ...?” Morgan Freeman interrupted, “Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man. And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You're not going to say, ‘I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’ Hear what I'm saying?”  

So maybe we just need to stop talking about it. Maybe that’s the answer. Partly! Maybe we need to bring attention to the absurdity of racial prejudice in ways other than chronicling all the bad things people of different races do to each other, and instead of focusing on negativity, bring more attention to the attributes of our various races. Force media to pay attention to outstanding accomplishments made by all races and all people of different ethnicities. 

Years ago, sick of all the negative reporting, I told my mother that I would really rather watch more uplifting news. Maybe spend a few minutes televising the negativity in our communities and in our world, and then take the rest of the half hour or hour showing positive actions taken by members of our communities and our world. She told me that nobody would watch it. 

Maybe she was right. We stop our cars to watch a traffic accident, and our own engines get revved when we view atrocities on TV that put us in the mood to fight people we perceive as our enemies. And usually, with the exception of the recent explosion of hatred for Muslims, those people are white if we’re black and black if we’re white.

Why not take that fight-urge we feel for situations that matter to us and become action-oriented individuals who work to improve our country and our communities, using our talents, our skills, and our intellect? What are we mirroring to our children? Instead of allowing media to force our children to watch the incessant belittling of black people, why don’t we show kids the strength, the resiliency, the fortitude, and the creativity of black people instead?

Way too many of us allow media to manipulate our minds for way too many reasons: because a lot of us don’t know how to reason; because a lot of us complacently play the roles of followers; and because a lot of us don’t use common sense. We rely on media to provide us with a semblance of truth, fabricated from pieces of truth, interwoven into lies so delicately that unless we care enough to know the absolute truth, we think that what we see actually happened. 

We allow and accept this manipulation, because we don’t want to take time to learn the truth. We believe that everything we see on TV or read online is true without validating the source!

We watch videos conveniently snipped together to give the illusion that what we see is true, because some bullies on the other side of the editing program want us to believe the lies we read and watch, or they were told by their bosses that the footage needed to be manipulated so their version would be considered reliable and would become viral! It never occurs to us that the reason we are fed lies is to improve ratings so we can feed greedy station managers.

We take as fact the lies we see and hear and then we vomit them across social media so that everyone can become infected with those same lies. We ceaselessly accept lie after lie after lie after lie. Those lies build walls of hatred between “us” and “them” and we protect those walls at all costs, because we fear that if we let our guard down, we will be annihilated. We have a let’s-get-them-before-they-get-us mentality, and it’s ripping apart the fabric of our United States.

WAKE UP! 

EDUCATE YOURSELF!

Wouldn’t it be nice to awaken tomorrow and know peace, no matter in which neighborhood you reside? Let’s stop focusing on hatred, prejudice, stereotypes, and statistics. Do we really want the Academy Awards to reflect national statistics? 

If 6% of American residents are of Italian descent, 3% of French descent, 2% of Norwegian descent, 7% of Mexican descent, 11% of Irish descent, and 15% of German descent, is the Academy responsible for insuring that they match statistical percentages to contenders for potential Academy Awards? 

How ridiculous! Awards should be given based on talent, not on color or ethnicity. If you create a movie that appeals to a wide audience and the acting and directing are superb, you deserve an award, but you don’t deserve an award only because statistically you belong to a small representation of your nationality.

However, if you truly want a voice in determining the outcome of the Academy Awards, become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Better yet, ask to be invited to join by somebody on the Board of Governors. Of course you’ll have to request admission from a current member to be considered for admission, and it would help if you already won an Academy Award, but if the goal of writing, producing, or acting in a movie is to win an award, learn how to win awards. 

Will winning an award mean you will now be respected as a producer, writer, actor, videographer, or whatever? Leonardo DiCaprio was already respected as an actor and now he has finally won an award. Did he need to win an award to get more roles? Will people treat him better now that he has won?

Maybe the best way to teach others how to treat all of us is to stop living down to whatever our particular stereotype dictates. If we are obese, for instance, let’s not sit in front of everyone in fast-food restaurants devouring several large hamburgers, tons of French fries, and 2 liters of pop. We all know that obesity and heart problems go hand in hand. Why put ourselves in a position to be ridiculed? 

If we are white, let’s own up to the fact that we were bullies when we first confiscated this country from its original inhabitants and felt that we had the right to use people as slaves. We are not the ones who have the right to give permission to others who want to live in this country, a country that was STOLEN BY THIEVES! And now we think we can dictate who will live here? Give that right to the Native Americans. Let them choose who they want to live in this country. 

And let us all remember, that unless our ancestors were Native Americans, our ancestors were all immigrants! A lot of immigrants today are hard-working individuals who just want a better life for themselves and their families. Like Muslims, they are not all terrorists! (Related Reading: Immigration Rant – America’s Dirty Secrets) 

If you don’t want to be seen as a thug, stop wearing your pants below your butts. Don’t allow negative media to convince you that you need to follow the stereotypical negative image media want all of us to believe about you no matter to what race you belong. 

Above all, whether you’re black, white, Muslim, Syrian, or belong to any ethnic group Americans have decided is not worthy of living in our country, always speak in a manner that shows, not only who you truly are, but also who you truly want to be. We need to expect more from ourselves and then exceed our own expectations. We need to respect each other, and we need to embrace our differences. 

Instead of complaining about the way things are, let’s change the way things are. If we don’t know how to change things, let’s learn how to change things. Let’s get involved in whatever matters to us so that we can make changes we want to see. Also let’s live by example! Let us prove to people who berate and humiliate us that we are NOT who or what others think we are. Let’s bring more attention to the positive aspects of race relations and inspire the spirit of cooperation. Let’s encourage children of different backgrounds to work together. 

Kids are having a hard enough time learning how to cooperate with each other considering the current atmosphere of extreme divisiveness in politics, but we owe it to them to provide at least a little hope, to believe that the way we present the world to them is not the way it always has to be.

We cannot change the past or the way people think about the past, but we can change the present and, through the present, the future. Every ethnic group has its stereotypes. Let’s erase those stereotypes and start presenting ourselves as intelligent, caring, compassionate, empathetic, loving, peace-keeping individuals who use common sense in our UNITED States. Until this current 2016 election, other countries respected us. Let’s earn that respect again.

How to Feel More Powerful

Picture a bully standing over a little child. Notice the bully with hands on hips and a larger than life presence. Now look at the one being bullied. The body looks small and almost curled into itself. What made the bully think he or she could pounce on the intended target? Did vulnerability play a role?

Bullies sense insecurity and vulnerability. They actively pursue victims they perceive to be weaker than they are. No better example exists of a coward than one who finds somebody weaker and chooses to victimize the weak.

Forget for a moment about bullies and victims you witness from afar. How many times do you or your children suffer from insecurity? How many times do you allow life to beat you down? One major upset to the life you’ve been living could cause the world you used to know dissolve around you and make you feel as if you’ve been swept up in a tidal wave. Maybe your husband left you for a younger woman or you just discovered that your best friend or sibling seduced your spouse. 

Maybe you were looking forward to retiring with the pension you’d been building for the past 50 years but the plant closed and went bankrupt, you lost all of your future income, and now you have to work an extra 20 years at a place similar to the one you’ve hated for the past 50.

However you interpret nonverbal communications of others, you act in response to your perceptions. With your response, what message – about you – do you give to the world? Do you look defeated, battered, and bruised, or do you look confident and in control of your life? Do you walk around with your shoulders slumped and your chin on your chest, or do you walk with your chin held high and your shoulders upright? Take a peek into the studies of phrenology and physiognomy, where facial expressions and body language reveal character – and lack of character to discern truths from lies. 

Years ago, I wrote the following article that discussed facial expressions and body language (the site where it appeared no longer exists): 

"Lie to Me" and Paul Ekman: Physiognomy and Phrenology Exposed:

Lie to Me was a television program about a group of experts in the field of face and body analysis who assisted local and federal law enforcement agencies in discovering the truth. Even something as seemingly innocuous as a slight facial movement, nearly imperceptible to the untrained eye, held secrets that surpassed even the most sophisticated lie detectors. The contention was that facial expressions revealed character.

The show also contended that character and the ability to ascertain truth were revealed not only through voluntary and involuntary facial expressions but also through body movements as well.

Dr. Paul Ekman, the inspiration for the show, wrote several books about the subject of physiognomy and revealed that truths can be found in what he terms "micro expressions" and involuntary body language. Together with Wallace V. Friesen, and Joseph C. Hager, Ekman developed and wrote a manual and investigators guide to understanding facial behavior entitled, The Facial Action Coding System (FACS), revised in 2002. (This nonverbal communication guide costs $260 plus shipping and handling, but the comprehensive guide offers an outstanding array of tools for researching and studying the face, including tools for artificially aging a face to aid in the recovery of missing children.)

Lie to Me was more than just a show about physiognomy (the study of facial expressions denoting character); it was also a show about phrenology (the study of skull formation and its relationship to character).

The practice of physiognomy has been around for at least 2500 years. Aristotle speculated on the relationship between external appearance and emotion, claiming that passion could be seen in the face. In the 17th century Charles Le Brun influenced the scientific community to further explore the benefits of physiognomy by comparing animal characteristics to human characteristics. Even before Charles Darwin introduced the subject of natural selection and evolution, phrenologists were comparing animals to humans. Like the movie, 101 Dalmatians, cartoons and television commercials sometimes depict people whose animals demonstrate a peculiar likeness to their owners.

Orson Squire Fowler and his publishing firm, Fowler and Wells, published many books on the subject and promoted his beliefs to the general public. His Phrenology Proved, Illustrated and Applied, convinces readers of the absoluteness of his beliefs. It was not until the 19th century, however, that the term "phrenology" was utilized.

Mary Olmstead Stanton in her book, Physiognomy, A Practical and Scientific Treatise: Being a Manual Of Instruction In The Knowledge Of The Human Physiognomy And Organism" (2nd edition, 1881), wrote that understanding physiognomy would enable man to understand himself.

While not widely practiced in the 18th and 19th centuries, phrenology and physiognomy were resurrected in the 20th century when Dr. Edward Vincent Jones compiled a list of physical traits which he believed correctly identified human character and behavior. As a United States Superior Court Judge, Dr. Jones tried criminal cases that included every type of personality and, based on his experience, was convinced that his findings were correct.

Phrenology, a study closely related to physiognomy, concerns itself mostly with characteristics of the skull, specifically size and structure of the skull, nose, eyes, ears, etc. and the angles of those structures. Physiognomy, on the other hand, is a study that relies on characteristics of the body, and in particular, the features of the face, the shape of the forehead, chin, cheeks, nose, lips, and eyes, and their relativity and distance to each other.

Our faces pout, ponder, smirk, smile, and wince. Through our expressions, we express joy, sadness, fear, and courage. Sometimes our expressions betray us when we try to hide behind a façade. Lie to Me would have helped identify and explain terms we use, like "stiff upper lip" and "high brow," characteristics that define a person's personality and emotions.

Hiding from the truth might have become more difficult if Lie to Me hadn’t been canceled. We might have been able to explore the truth behind our expressions. People who willfully suppressed their emotions and concealed their fears would have found themselves exposed. Subtleties of expression that previously went undetected are all revealed in the Facial Action Coding System. By watching Lie to Me we might have been able to save ourselves $260 and learned something valuable.

Maybe Lie to Me would also have helped us discern truth from lies in our most significant relationships. And maybe, after watching Lie to Me, we would have known exactly what Mona Lisa's smile actually revealed.

###

And now I would like to introduce you to a TED Talk video, conducted by Amy Cuddy, who studies nonverbal communication, particularly as it relates to power and dominance. In the video she shows you, not only how to look more powerful, but also how to feel more powerful. Trust me. This video is worth the time it takes to watch it:

Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are

By watching the video you'll learn not how to fake being powerful, but to become powerful!

What Can I Do For You vs. What Can You Do For Me

“…One with true virtue always seeks a way to give. One who lacks virtue always seeks a way to get. To the giver comes the fullness of life; to the taker, just an empty hand.” 79th verse of the Tao (as revealed in Dr. Wayne W. Dyer’s book, Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao).

The other day it occurred to me that I could group people into two different camps: those who did everything in their power to help their loved ones experience more joy and feel more love; and those who expected others to give, give, give – to the takers. The takers expected the givers to spend their time and material resources on the takers, without gratitude or without expending one iota of effort in returning that show of love and support. 

One of my Xs, when I left him, paid little to sometimes no child support but expected his kids to buy (not make) him birthday and Christmas gifts every year. He also expected all of his friends to reach out to him, though he never once reached out to any of them without prompts of some sort. I had been the one to remind him of their birthdays, so when I left, he never made another call and eventually lost all but one of his friends.

A woman I once knew expected all of her family members to call her and to visit her. When a grandchild’s birthday rolled around, she would buy that child a gift, but if that grandchild didn’t show up to receive it, she would give the present to another grandchild. 

Those are mild cases of people who belong to the WCYDFM (what can you do for me) Camp. WCIDFY (what can I do for you) people are more difficult to find, not because they don’t exist, but because they perform their kindnesses quietly. They don’t want displays of appreciation. Unlike the WCYDFMers, who trumpet everything they do for others, the WCIDFYers don’t expect applause and accolades. They just do what is right without expecting anything in return.

During my last pregnancy, when I was married to a WCYDFMer (who was that way only with me, by the way – to our neighbors he was a WCIDFYer), I sat down on the couch next to my (then) husband and asked him to scratch my back – to show just a little affection – something he hadn’t done in many years and something I was willing to try again since I was 9 months pregnant. After all, I held inside me his child. 

Though, on occasion, he would scratch my back prior to our marriage, and though I always scratched his back whenever he asked, from the weeks prior to our marriage and all the way through to the end of our marriage, every time I asked him, he refused.

He also went out of his way to accommodate our neighbors – whenever anybody needed him for any reason, he cleaned out their gutters, mowed their lawns, shopped for them, etc., but when I asked him to pick up a gallon of milk, since he was already going out to get beer and cigarettes, he refused, saying he wasn’t going to that store, so I would have to wait for him to return, bundle up all the kids and take all of them to the store with me, because he refused to babysit.

After a while I decided that never again would I ask him to do anything for me, because he refused – again – to scratch my back. Instead I decided to lie next to him on the couch, hoping he would snuggle with me. What’s that they say about insanity? You keep trying the same thing, but you keep expecting different results – every time? Just as he had done several times before, he lifted his knee and shoved me off the couch with his foot. I tumbled to the ground, 9 month pregnant belly and all.

When your relationship is so lopsided that your good deeds are never reciprocated, when you give, give, give, and never feel loved, you hopefully realize that the relationship is one-sided, and then you realize (again, hopefully), that when “relationships” are one-sided, you aren’t “relating” at all.

When I left him, I found myself living below the poverty level, so, because I spent everything I made on my kids, I felt I couldn’t give to others less fortunate than I was. In my faulty thinking I believed that, because I had no money, I was incapable of helping others, and money seemed to be what others needed most. 

One day, just recently (I’m a slow learner), I had an epiphany. I might already be giving to the people I loved! Need a sitter? I’m your girl! Want a crocheted item? I’ll make it for you. And so I had to rewire my thinking and start to believe that giving didn’t have to involve money. Sometimes what people need is a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen. And so, without recognizing that I was already giving, I made a conscious effort to give – of myself and of my time.

Before this last Thanksgiving a local organization devoted to helping abused and/or homeless children held a benefit to raise money by asking people to donate items the organization could sell at their fundraiser. I brought a bin filled with lots of crocheted scarves, hats, headbands, and other items for them to sell. And I felt so good about giving! 

How refreshing to know that though I had no money, I could use items I’d crocheted or knitted to benefit somebody else. Why had I never before thought that I could help others by giving something other than money – with items I’d made? Other than crocheting hats for cancer patients, I rarely gave away my hand-made items.

Some of us, as I mentioned above, are slow learners. My thinking needed a little tweaking. I always wanted to be one of those people who could help globally – on a grand scale – and I got discouraged knowing that I couldn’t help even locally. But by donating items I made and by caring for my grandchildren when my kids need help, I’ve made at least a small contribution to some people who have needed my help. Maybe it starts there, at home and with our own circle of friends. And maybe that’s enough.

So take a look around you. Does somebody you love perform acts of kindnesses for you? Do you expect that person to continue to serve you? Do you get angry when he or she doesn’t serve you? Have you been taking that person for granted? 

How about you? Do you go out of your way to make sure your loved ones feel loved? Look at your relationship with your spouse and other close loved ones. Are they doing everything for you? Do you expect them to help you feel loved? 

Probably of everything we do to maintain our significant relationships, the one thing that is most meaningful – to them – is demonstrating our love for them. What better way for those we love to feel loved! 

While I believe we shouldn’t expect anything in return as far as material reciprocations are concerned, we also shouldn’t feel compelled to sacrifice ourselves if we feel we are being used – with one caveat – if we have children in our care, we must sacrifice our time, and sometimes our sleep, because we chose to bring our children into the world. They are not using us! They are depending on us! Giving should be its own reward, something we all discover when we decide to give – of our material possessions and/or of our selves. 

So are you being kind to your spouse, to your children, to your family, to your friends, and to others whose paths you cross? As Ellen Degeneres always says, “Be kind to one another.” And I would like to add, be a What Can I Do For You kind of person.

#WCIDFY #WCYDFM

In Search of Happiness

Maybe I’m too optimistic in my belief that ALL of us want to be happy, that happiness is something we all strive to achieve. If my theory is true, why then do so many of us sabotage our own happiness? Why do we unknowingly restrict ourselves from enjoying anything and spend our whole lives looking for something we think we’ll never find? Even if we allow ourselves to think for one minute that we were meant to experience happiness, we believe happiness is like the elusive butterfly – fleeting.

Many of us live on the opposite end of the spectrum from happy. We are bitter, angry, spiteful, jealous, and depressed. And if somebody suggests that we can be happy, we provide lots of excuses to show them how wrong they are. Who can argue with us when we cry about the loss of a parent, a spouse, a child, a home, a job, or a car? We have no reason to be happy, we explain.

Even years later, after we remarry (a drug-abusing alcoholic), give birth to more children (we can’t afford to raise), live in a home (that is too small for our family), have jobs (that don’t pay our bills), drive a car (that lives in the repair shop more often than on the street), we complain bitterly and hold fast to our reasons, or more accurately, our excuses, to explain our relentless unhappiness. Happiness was obviously not meant for us. 

If we had what we wanted or needed but currently don’t have, we explain, we’d be happy. Money, for example, for most of us, would make us happy. We don’t need extreme wealth, though prosperity would be nice – we just need enough money to pay our bills, take a trip, and buy a few luxuries now and then.

So we cling to our belief that others were meant to be happy. We think our lives are worse than anyone else’s life. We think that everything we do is worthless and meaningless. Nothing matters anymore, because everything we do is never good enough. We’ll never be able to support our families, we’ll never find the job that could pay our bills, we’ll never have that child we always wanted, we’ll never … (the list goes on and on).

We think that even if we could pursue our passions (we don’t have enough money to quit our jobs), or if we were wealthy (that will never happen) or if more people supported us and believed in us (our families and friends are about as supportive as stretched out pieces of elastic), maybe THEN we’d be happy. But some very wealthy individuals who have pursued their passions and have had the support of family and friends are still so unhappy they feel their lives aren’t worth living. So you wonder, what’s the point?

STOP! Just STOP! Let’s reexamine our thoughts. We have just invited a a hoard of negativity to enter our spirits, which are now filled with so much self-criticism, hatred, pessimism, and pain that they have hardened to a point where no positive energy can enter. That protective wall we’ve built around us serves only to keep all the negativity inside, smoldering and festering, until we become one giant inflamed sore. Happiness tries to get in, but our walls are too thick, and we’re too stubborn to allow it entry.

And many of us drown ourselves in alcohol and fill our bodies with drugs destined to make even the most positive among us sink deeper into the pits of hell. 

We need to stop abusing our bodies. We need to stop poisoning our minds (and the minds of others who look to us for guidance). We need to open up our hearts and allow the possibility for a little bit of happiness to enter. 

If we don’t, we become bitter old hags with permanent scowls on our faces, pushing away every good thing that comes our way, because we don’t believe that good things can happen – for us. We have convinced ourselves to believe we don’t deserve to be happy, even while that little voice inside us tells us that we do. Why pay attention to that lying, conniving voice when we know that its purpose is to trick us? We are living proof that nothing good happens for people like us. And we compare our heartaches and devastating losses to those of others. 

But comparing ourselves to others is a recipe for disaster. We all follow our own paths, our own loves, our own passions, and what we believe to be our own destinies. Being on my path makes me no better or no worse than you. My progress in life, while connected to yours, in no way is meant to intimate you any more than your progress is meant to intimidate me. 

We are all at different levels of spirituality, emotional maturity, intellect, and physical development. Would you compare your phase of emotional development to that of a teenager? Would you condemn the teenager for not knowing how to regulate his or her hormones? Would you criticize a baby for not knowing how to walk? 

Sadly some parents do, and babies, while unable to comprehend our words, understand and interpret very well our emotions. Inherent in that infant is the ability to stand upright, but our criticism and harassment cannot force Baby to stand before Baby is ready. 

Why then do we force ourselves or our loved ones to travel paths we think they should travel at the pace we think they should move when they are not ready? Why can’t we recognize that our friends and family members are on their own paths and at their own stages of development? If more of us supported and encouraged others – and ourselves – to travel the paths we were meant to travel, more of us might find happiness.

We also need to stop thinking of ourselves as sinners. To feel that we were born with sin and that we have to spend the rest of our lives ridding ourselves of the disgusting filth that embodied us from the moment we were conceived, we place ourselves in a type of Hell from which we may never escape. 

Isn’t sin nothing more than succumbing to temptation? How can a newborn be expected to resist temptation? – Even if the baby was born with sin, how can a defenseless infant be expected to resist temptation? And how can we be born with sin that is supposedly already a part of us unless we brought it forth from a past life? 

Are we to believe in a punishing God and that God is still punishing all of us for the sins committed by Adam and Eve? Maybe we need to rethink our purpose in being on this planet. Maybe the time has come for us to recognize that we have choices. If we believe in the teachings of the Bible, we know that ALL OF US were given Free Will! And because we make our own choices, others make their own choices as well. 

Sometimes their choices put us in danger. Sometimes their choices hurt us. Sometimes their choices kill our family and friends. But so do our choices affect them. Are we always making informed choices? If God took away our Free Will, our ability to choose, would we then be happy? Would we be happy living as robots, unable to make our own choices, because they’ve already been made for us? Why bother living at all if we can’t decide how to live our own lives? 

We have to accept that we have the ability to choose our thoughts, even when others humiliate us, degrade us, and behave in ways that make us miserable. 

As I was in the midst of writing this piece, my mother called to tell me that her grandson (my nephew) would soon be moving and that she was trying to find somebody to take the wall unit that she and my dad had given to him. I had just been telling one of my granddaughters, who had spent the weekend, that I needed a large wall unit to hold all my crafts. 

So when the subject about the shelves arose, I jumped at the opportunity to take something that once belonged to my parents. I told my mom I wanted it and she immediately went on a tirade. “You are NOT getting it. And where would you put it anyway? You are too unstable! You never stay anywhere long enough! How can I expect you to be living anywhere for very long when you move constantly?”

While her reasoning made no sense to me (what difference does moving make?), I understood (but didn’t really understand) that she wanted a stable environment for her very expensive shelf unit. Later, when I talked to my son, who will be taking the shelf unit, I learned that my mother had told him that she knew I was angry with her and that maybe she shouldn’t have been so honest. Those words knocked me off my feet. I found myself even angrier, and I plunged into a depressive state that took a couple of days to dissipate.

Why? I have a tendency to become depressed (usually over lack of money, though), and I always have to resist depression. My mom has never been to my home and she has told me that she will never visit my home, because she won’t drive this far. The problem would be solved if she would spend the night, but she refuses to spend the night. She has no idea how much space I have or why I would want the shelf unit in the first place, etc. But more importantly, she lashed out at me for – what? Why was she angry with me for wanting to take the shelf unit she no longer needed or wanted? 

And how could I continue writhing an article about happiness when I was now so miserable I couldn’t think happy thoughts – at all – in my depressed state of mind? My thoughts went back to the mom she was to me 6 years ago. If I had asked for the wall unit then, she would gladly have given it to me. I had been newly diagnosed with breast cancer, had to go through surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, and she was so terrified I might die, she would have done anything to make me happy. 

But, I realized, because of past psychologically devastating family situations, once the cancer treatment was over, our relationship would resume its stasis. I was back to my designation as the unforgivably weird and unstable renegade in my family. 

And then it hit me – happiness isn’t always an easily achievable state. I needed to understand that fact if I was going to continue writing this article. I’m also reading Dr. Wayne Dyer’s, Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life. Even if my mother was trying to impart to me the message that I was incapable of caring for anything, even something nobody wanted, I had to learn that what my mother, and others, think about me, is really, according to Dr. Dyer, none of my business. 

Though we try to overcome our sadness at things others say about us, though we may become depressed when people who are supposed to love us act as if they are fully intent on “putting us in our place,” wherever they think that place is, we have to recognize that sometimes angry, miserable, or even just critical people will come along to challenge our attempts to be happy. 

What I’ve learned and what I continue to learn, is that we can’t allow others to threaten our happiness. Whatever my mother’s reasons were for not wanting me to take the wall unit, I had to let go of my desire to make sense of her adamant stronghold about me being unstable. She may go to her grave thinking I’m inept, but I refuse to go to mine believing her.

What I have also learned over time is that we can’t always change what happens around us and we can’t always change what happens to us (though we have some control over what precipitates certain events that occur, like tempting fate by texting/drinking and driving). We can change our reactions, our perceptions, and our beliefs. We can choose to affect our destinies by following our own desired paths, even while others are standing on our paths, intent on pushing us over the edge.

Ignoring them isn’t always an option. Maybe they are our parents, our children, our siblings, or our best friends. But we can choose our reactions to them. We can understand that maybe they are limited in their abilities to move along their own paths, because they’ve been stuck in one position for so long, they don’t know how to proceed. Maybe they’re so focused on us making mistakes they can’t see their own blunders. Or maybe they think their job is to guide us along our paths at the expense of their own journeys.

We can also open our minds to other possibilities. Maybe we brought our sins into this life from a previous existence and the reincarnation theory, “What you reap, so shall you sow,” is playing itself out. Another example for opening our minds is the study of Vedanta, a type of Vedas philosophy, which tells us that, “our real nature is divine. God is our innermost Self, an underlying reality that exists in every being. Religion is therefore a search for Self, a search for God within. We don't need to be ‘saved.’ At worst, we are unaware of our true nature.” (See Source 1 below.) 

Another explanation for Vedanta appears here (Source 2 below): “Vedanta is one of the world’s most ancient religious philosophies and one of its broadest. Based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of India, Vedanta affirms the oneness of existence, the divinity of the soul, and the harmony of religions. Vedanta is the philosophical foundation of Hinduism; but while Hinduism includes aspects of Indian culture, Vedanta is universal in its application and is equally relevant to all countries, all cultures, and all (religions).” (What I like about the Vedanta philosophy is that Vedanta treats Christ and spiritual teachers from other religions with equal respect.)

If we learned to accept that happiness is obtainable, we would want to explore the truth that resides in all of us, that we were born with a divine nature, an acceptance that would change our belief about who we are. Believing we are divine does not mean that we are sinless. We are human, after all, but believing in our own divine nature opens our hearts and minds wide enough to recognize that God truly does reside within us! 

Isn’t that what even Biblical scholars have been teaching us all along – that God resides within us – that we don’t have to search outside ourselves to find God? How can we be born with sin if God has dwelled inside us from the moment of conception? And if God co-exists with sin, why do we pay more attention to the negative aspects of our nature (the sins we and others choose to commit)? Why can’t we focus more on our divine nature (the God within)?

One explanation is that we allow greed, anger, gluttony, lust, envy, pride, and sloth (the seven deadly sins) to control us. To combat those sins, we need to replace greed with generosity, anger with compassion and kindness, gluttony with temperance, lust with self-control, envy with empathy and love, pride with humility, and sloth with action. (See Source 4 below.) And maybe we need to start paying attention to little things that we tend to dismiss when we are in the throes of negativity, those almost unrecognizable moments of joy, like this one:

One year, when I was working two part-time jobs, going to school full time, raising my three youngest kids, and getting them to all their after-school activities, I sat in a Dairy Queen parking lot on a beautiful Spring day, waiting for my youngest daughter to get her free ice cream cone (a coupon prize from one of her teachers). Her siblings were with friends and I was trying to relax before I had to return home to wrestle with homework – theirs and mine – and figure out a way to pay the bills. I had been arguing bitterly with their father over the child support he was supposed to pay in keeping with inflation, but he refused. 

Instead, though for eight years the cost of living had risen dramatically, he continued to pay what he paid eight years before. I calculated the difference between what he had been paying and what he should be paying to be the weekly cost of two gallons of milk, a box of cereal, and a loaf of bread. My frustration over his refusal to obey the courts put me in a terrible state of mind. Though I kept praying for some relief, though I kept asking for a miracle, I was always choking back tears, always ready to pound my fists into my steering wheel, my floor, the walls, or even my forehead. One time I flattened a ring on my finger because I had pounded the floor so hard, crying out to God and blaming Him for putting me in such a state of poverty, that I couldn’t get the ring off my finger without using a pair of pliers. 

So, while my daughter stood in line, waiting for her ice cream cone, I stared out the window and, once again fought back tears as I tried to enjoy the weather and not let her see the pain I was in or the frustration I was feeling.

In that moment, a little girl, who was maybe 3 or 4, came up to my driver’s window as her dad looked at me through the front window of my car. She handed me a handful of dandelions, and, in that moment, my heart melted. The little girl didn’t pay my bills and she didn’t entice my X to pay child support, but she came in answer to a prayer. Unbidden, she offered me something my own children had given me numerous times before, a handful of dandelions. 

In that moment, I felt something crack open inside me. I truly believed that this child had been sent to me by God, who I imagined was telling me, “Open your hand. Accept this gift. And open your heart. Remember this moment with joy. Many more will come. Recognize them. In time, you’ll understand that true joy brings happiness.”

My life didn’t change dramatically or immediately. I still found myself getting fired up over my X and his refusal to accept responsibility for his children. And I still fought with creditors over bills I couldn’t afford to pay. But I felt a shift of energy inside me and I never forgot that little girl and her gift.

Today I am happy. I live at just above (yay for small steps) poverty level and I live on a strict budget, but I am happy. Through the sale of my manufactured home, I was able to buy new furniture (my kids grew up with nothing but borrowed furniture). 

My true joy, though, comes from spending time with my kids and grandkids, from visits with friends and family, from the change in seasons, from finding a skein of yarn that I think would make a nice project, from watching new episodes of NCIS or Criminal Minds, from knowing I have a plethora of movies and shows I can watch on Netflix, from walking on my treadmill, or from finding time to read a book. 

Most recently, I began a new business, Crystal Butterfly Creations Message in a Bottle. Will it thrive? I don’t know. My happiness doesn’t depend on whether or not this business succeeds. My happiness derives from knowing that I have talents and skills I can share with others. My happiness comes from knowing that God resides within me and that I can connect with that Source of Happiness and Joy every minute of every day if I open my heart and my mind to recognize the positive energy I draw from that Source – from God. I just have to remember, even in times of sadness and frustration, that God is there waiting for me to notice that Fountain of Joy within me.

Life has never been easy for me. The struggles oftentimes have been insurmountable, just as they have been for everyone else. We can’t expect to remain in a blissful state 24 hours every day. We all encounter frustrations and tragedy that require our attention and zap our energy.

But we can trust that life is cyclical and that “all things must pass,” including our own lives. So while we’re still alive, let’s start enJOYing those little things that bring us JOY right now, today. Let’s learn how to be happy by following our own paths, encouraging and supporting others to follow their own paths, and guiding them along their paths, trusting that we are all where we are meant to be. 

Let’s support others who have fallen off their paths and who have ignored the God within them. Let’s help others realize their talents and skills, and let’s encourage them to share their gifts with others. I leave you with this quote from Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

Sources:

1 Vedanta

2 What is Happiness?

3 Vedanta Overview

4 Seven Deadly Sins and the Virtues They Sin Against

Controversial Discussion on Drug Abuse – We are Lying to Our Kids About Drugs

So many programs and drug rehabilitation centers are devoted to helping kids and adults recover from the devastating effects of drug abuse and/or alcoholism.

So with all we've been doing, why is nothing working? Why are kids still abusing drugs and alcohol? 

If you believe some of the documentaries floating around about how the government is controlling the drug cartels, or maybe government is being controlled by the drug cartels, you might think our kids have no hope.

But I think we've been looking at drug abuse incorrectly. We've been lying to our kids by telling them that drugs are bad. Why do I think that? Rather than discuss my feelings in this blog, I'm going to direct you to another blog that discusses – in detail – Why What We’re Telling Our Kids About Drugs Doesn’t Help Them. 

Relationship Problems? Answer This One Question and You’ll Know What To Do!

We all experience occasional relationship problems, whether they are with our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, significant others, or friends. And most of the time, we are able to resolve those problems, because deep down, we know our loved ones truly love us. 

But sometimes we really don’t know that – or if – they love us, because we’re insecure about their love for us. When our spouses, who chose to marry us, for instance, don’t act lovingly toward us; when our mothers, who birthed us, but maybe suffered from postpartum depression or were raped and never told us, don’t act lovingly toward us, how can we not rush to judgment and assume they may not really love us? We can’t – and don’t want to – consider that our moms might have been too afraid to love us due to impossible-to-believe circumstances that led to our births – or even to our conceptions. And as far as the partner with whom we chose to spend the rest of our lives is concerned, some of us wonder – did we marry a psychopath?

Many of us have dads who neglected us, siblings who assumed the role of being our harshest critics, and children who grew up to take an unfamiliar path – not the one we guided them toward. They refused to follow our directions, because they chose their own paths – and we think, how dare them! Why don’t they love us?

Or do they?

The road we travel is long and comes with so many twists and turns, we sometimes can’t help but get lost, and we can’t help but decide that others are lost, too, because they didn’t choose the right path – our path. Not every life is mapped with signposts to help us along our way. The road to a healthy relationship is filled with all kinds of hurdles and missteps. And if we don’t watch where we’re going, we may find ourselves in a ditch.

One of the problems some of us encounter when it comes to our own relationships is that our perceptions of the people to whom we relate is actually distorted; we think people don’t love us, because they don’t fit our image of what a loving parent, spouse, etc. should look like. We sometimes refuse to recognize that just because somebody is angry with us, for example, their anger doesn’t mean they hate us. The less mature among us take every bump on the relationship road as a sign – or as an excuse – to end the relationship, especially when it becomes too difficult to handle, rather than look at our problems as opportunities to grow the relationship and progress ourselves and our loved ones spiritually. 

We need to face our challenges and overcome our obstacles if we want our relationships to succeed. We need to recognize that just because loved ones are angry with us today doesn’t mean they will throw us out of their lives forever tomorrow. Most situations are transitory, and most problems can be resolved if both partners participate in resolving the issues.

Some situations require us to understand the meaning behind the actions of others. A mother loses her self-control, for instance, when she sees her teenage daughter dressed inappropriately. The daughter sees the outrage as a blow to her individuality. She has no clue that the clothes she wears entice predators and invite unwelcome advances. The teenage brain isn’t yet equipped with the ability to recognize that someone who lavishes the teenager with attention is actually a predator pretending to be a teenager – or an actual teenager with a hidden agenda.

Vulnerable teenagers don’t want to believe that the “young” boy or girl who acts adoringly attentive and loving toward him or her online is actually a 60-year-old pervert working an intricate dance of seduction designed to entice girls or boys away from the safety of their homes into his house of horrors. So the mother comes off as being hateful, when in fact, she is concerned for the welfare of her child. But teenagers often don’t understand the consequences of their actions – until it’s too late. 

Some relationship problems require more loving effort on our part than we’re equipped to handle – raising defiant teenagers, for instance. I highly recommend reading Discussing Teenage Defiance by James Dobson, Ph.D. The article offers some helpful advice for dealing with defiant teens.

Another example of an all-too-common relationship problem is abuse in its many forms, whether physical, emotional, or sexual. When a husband or wife comes home every night and berates and humiliates his or her spouse, those actions are not the actions of a loving soulmate. People who love each other act lovingly toward each other. Actions speak volumes. The same holds true for parents. If we love our children, they need to know through our actions and through the way we look at them that we love them, and NOT in a sexual way.

Too many children live in fear these days – in their own homes. (Living with an abusive parent or alcoholic can be terrifying for adults, so imagine how living with one can destroy a child.) Children can’t escape the constant trauma unless someone saves them from the abuse. No child should have to live in fear. If you are a parent who is providing a home for a child who lives in constant fear, whether due to physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, the relationship you form with that child will be damaged, possibly beyond repair, and your child will grow up distrusting you and everyone else. 

Some parents can’t move their children away from the situation, because they’re too afraid themselves to leave the abuse. In those situations, parents need to reach out for help from organizations that offer help, because staying with abuse and subjecting your children to abuse is also abuse, and if you love your child, you’ll force yourself to move out of your “comfort” zone – your child’s private hell – into a safe environment. If you are a parent of a child who is being abused by your spouse, you are not showing love to your child if you force him or her every day to experience ongoing terror.

Other less traumatizing events contribute to children never feeling safe in their homes, too. I never felt that my dad loved me, for example. My mom used to say that he loved me, “in his own way.” I learned to hate those words, because I never understood what she meant. He daily criticized, humiliated, and degraded me. I learned to hate myself and I eventually accepted that I was stupid, ugly, and unlovable. It took me decades to overcome my insecurities. 

Then just recently, after my father died, a dear friend talked to me about her mother, with whom she had had a strained relationship. From her I learned how to view my relationship with my dad differently. 

When he was a young man, my dad had saved a lot of money, so much money in fact, that his mother and father took his money and drove the entire family from Illinois to California to live. They never paid him back and for the rest of his life my father resented his parents for stealing his money. While my sisters and I were growing up, my father became rather stingy with his money, refusing to buy even underwear for us, because he didn’t think they were necessary since nobody saw them under our clothes anyway (my mother insisted though).

His (what we all perceived to be) stinginess changed when my sisters and I became adults. My father would often throw money our way and it never occurred to me that, because of his relationship with money and because he always resented his parents for stealing his money and using it to take care of themselves and my dad’s four siblings, money was my dad’s way of showing affection to us.

So does the possibility exist that the person who you feel doesn’t love you actually does, but doesn’t know how to show it the way you need it to be shown? We always assume that the people who love us know what we need to feel loved by them, but you’d be surprised by how many people have no clue how to express their love for us. 

Over the many years I have lived, I have learned that we all have a responsibility to tell our loved ones in concrete terms what we need from them so they will know how to love us. Sometimes a show of affection, such as holding hands or hugging is all we need to feel loved. Some of us need to hear the words, “I love you.” But if we never tell our loved ones what we need from them because we feel, “they should know,” we’ll never receive the affection we want from them. 

Then, of course, the materialistic among us (the superficial ones) need things to know they’re appreciated. If your loved one says he or she needs material objects to prove you love your partner, get out of the relationship now, before s/he cleans out your bank account with demands for material “affection.” That kind of “love” won’t last. If she or he is your child, start now to teach your child the true nature of “value.”

Forgetting the materialistic “lover,” let’s say we tell our loved ones what we need from them and they ignore our requests. Do we assume they don’t care? Maybe. Maybe not. Some people have a hard time saying, “I love you.” Some people aren’t comfortable with hugs. And yet, some people really don’t know how to love. 

If you are always the one putting forth effort to maintain the relationship and you’re getting tired of the lack of reciprocity, you more likely have a master/slave relationship than you do a familial one. Maybe the time has come for you to take an inventory of what you have given to the relationship and compare what you have given to what you have received from the relationship. Because if the people you love don’t respond at all to your requests and if they don’t even try to make an effort to act lovingly toward you, maybe it’s time to excise them from your life.

And yet, because we look at things from our own perspectives, we don’t always see things as they are. We see things only from our own point of view. Taking ourselves out of the situation and placing ourselves in other’s shoes is not always possible, but we really need to examine our situation objectively to get a better perspective. 

Let’s say a smoker husband lives with an asthmatic wife. Though she suffers tremendously and though they spend a huge amount of money on medications and hospital visits, he refuses to give up smoking in their home. She gives birth to their baby who also develops asthma. Surely the father will give up smoking in the home for the sake of his own baby’s health, the mom thinks. But he doesn’t. 

Does that mean he doesn’t love his baby? I don’t think jumping to that conclusion is fair. But I do think that the man is selfish and stupid because he is jeopardizing the health of both his wife and his baby. He probably thinks, “This is my house and I can do whatever I want to do in MY house.” 

He sees his wife’s “demands” as a power ploy, because he’s too invested in himself to consider how his actions might impact another human being, even if that being is his own offspring. What matters to him is HIM and him alone. Everyone must bow to his wishes. In his mind, they don’t show him the respect he demands, and to him, everything is about respect – respect for him. Egocentric, selfish, and immature individuals place the needs and wishes of others beneath their own wishes, even when their own wishes jeopardize the health and sanity of others. We don’t want to believe that our parents or our spouses are so focused on their own needs and wants that they could care less about our needs and wants. 

How can we be sure if they love us? 

If you wonder about whether or not you should exert any more effort into your relationship, especially when you feel drained and exhausted from working so hard to maintain it, ask yourself this one question – do you feel loved? If you honestly feel loved, you can resolve any relationship issue. If you don’t feel loved, ask yourself why you are maintaining the relationship.

Loving parents, siblings, spouses, and friends are supposed to bring out the best in us. They are supposed to encourage us to use our talents and intellect to our best advantage. They are supposed to celebrate our victories with us and comfort us during our failures. They’re not supposed to judge or criticize us. Though we may not be aware of what we need from them, the best relationships challenge us to be our best selves. They don’t allow us to take the lazy way out of working toward becoming the awesome people we were meant to be. 

Oftentimes, giving up on important relationships means giving up something of ourselves. Sometimes we need to put forth more effort, especially when those relationships are important to us. We don’t want to regret decisions we make today, because they will negatively impact us in the future, and we might have a hard time forgiving ourselves if we don't at least try to mend a broken relationship.

So take a look at your significant relationships. Do you need proof that someone loves you? I once asked my ex-husband if he loved me enough to give up beer. He glared at me and hours later brought home a case of it. I had my answer (hence, the “ex” status).

Well, let me tell you a little secret I learned that day – if you have to ask for proof, you don’t feel secure in your relationship. And if you don’t feel secure in your relationship, you either have some personal issues that need attention, or you have valid reasons for feeling insecure. Men and women who accuse their spouses of cheating on them, for instance, are usually later discovered to be cheating themselves and therefore accuse their spouses of what they are guilty of doing. If you feel you need proof that your spouse loves you, he or she probably doesn’t, or you need to figure out why you feel so insecure.

Relationships require effort to maintain, but those efforts should be made with every intention of improving the relationship; they shouldn’t leave you feeling exhausted every time you expend the effort. If you’re giving, giving, giving, until you have nothing left to give and if your partner or loved one expects you to keep giving, giving, giving, without appreciating you or acting lovingly toward you, maybe the time has come to let go of the relationship.

I’m not saying you need to “get” something every time you “give” something, because maybe all you need are feelings of joy, triumph, exuberance, and a heart filled with love when you’re with your loved one. If those are your feelings, you’re relating well, but if all you feel is depression, anxiety, guilt, or anger, you either need to change the way you relate or stop relating completely.

Sometimes you’re just with the wrong person. I knew a couple once who brought out the absolute worst in each other. They fought constantly and everyone around them wondered why they were still together. Then the guy (who was a friend of my ex’s) met somebody new, and his behavior changed dramatically, so much, in fact, that he acted like a different person. The new woman in his life brought out the best in him and he suddenly became friendlier and happier. They later married, had a couple of children, who are now grown, and they are still happily together.

Before you decide to sever ties with people who matter to you, step outside of yourself and look at your situation from the other person’s point of view. So many of us hold such hatred in our hearts because of a perceived wrong, and we hang on to the anger and hatred. It eats away at us from the inside out and we experience all kinds of physical problems and emotional distress because of it. We become distrustful and bitter.

What we need in those kinds of situations is to learn one of the most important aspects of any successful relationship – how to forgive, because by not forgiving, we persecute ourselves. None of us is so perfect, we can’t forgive imperfections in another. “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” (Lewis B. Smedes) 

Sometimes we don’t want to appear vulnerable and we think that by offering our forgiveness, others will take advantage of us. “We think that forgiveness is weakness, but it's absolutely not; it takes a very strong person to forgive.” (T. D. Jakes)

Forgiving also requires fortitude. “It's not an easy journey, to get to a place where you forgive people. But it is such a powerful place, because it frees you.” (Tyler Perry) 

And at some point, we need to realize that only when we are capable of forgiving are we truly capable of loving another human being. We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. “He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

We all deserve to be loved and we all deserve to be loved the way we want to be loved. Ask yourself if you are doing everything possible to help your loved ones feel loved. Are you doing something every day that lets your loved ones know how loved they are? If you are, you are contributing positively to your relationship. If you’re not contributing to the success of your relationship, start now to repair the damage. Love has no time limit and is always awaiting recognition.

If you’re experiencing relationship problems, learn how to solve them with the people who are part of the problem. If they love you, they’ll want to work on the relationship too. If they don’t care, leave them (unless they’re your children). And remember, you’ll know if your relationship is good if being in it makes you – and the person who is relating to you – feel good about yourself and each other. And if you feel hurt by a relationship that is not working out, learn to forgive the other person and allow both of you to heal from the pain.

Working on relationships with people who matter to you builds character. You’ll both benefit from the time and effort you put into strengthening the bond you had with each other.

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.” (Thomas Merton)