The Mercury – Monday

“I just want to be happy.”

I hear it over and over again – usually with a little whine in the tone.

It’s often whimpered as if happiness is some sort of award or something that may descend upon a person who is in the right place at the right time.

I hear it uttered as if happiness is being doled out somewhere and it’s just SO UNFAIR that others somewhere are getting it.

Truth is, you have more chance of being struck by lightening than you have being struck by happiness.

Happiness has no victims.

It’s a by-product. It grows out of purposeful living.

Happiness is out of control – even to the rich and powerful.

You may have noticed its penchant for playing hide and seek with the rich and powerful.

It’s yours when you fight and win the good fight over trying to be happy. It’s yours when you engage purposes greater than yourself, your pleasures, and appetites.

The road to happiness is often paved with difficulty and things you may think will never deliver any joy.

It hides from the lazy, from the self-indulgent, the entitled, the spoiled, the whiner, but embraces those seeking justice and authenticity and doing what is good and right by others.

Ironically happiness often escapes the rich and makes its home with the poor, the humble.

Oddly, it’s one thing that doesn’t, as it is said, “follow the money.”

The Mercury – Monday

Monday morning mantras – take your pick – I will be using them all this week….

• I will use every encounter to learn and to grow as a person

• I can learn from all other people no matter what their age or status or level of education

• I am neither inferior nor superior to anyone on the planet no matter who or what they are

• Every action has an equal and opposite reaction especially among people who are emotionally connected through love or rejection

• My response to what occurs is more important than what occurs

• Rapid reactions to the actions of others usually fuel later regret

• A rigid reaction is usually unnecessary as almost everything within communities has some room for negotiation

• It is almost always possible for a “win-win” to result in all relationship dilemmas and I am going to help people move towards that by doing so myself

• Healthy people willingly engage in necessary conflict in order to better understand each other, better love each other, and create circumstances for all to enjoy greater freedom

• Love and control cannot coexist in the same relationship – if you have to manipulate and control, it is not love even if you say it is.

Are we normal?

“Why be normal?” was bandied about years ago on bumper stickers and the like (often, you may remember, it was posted upside down).

One day seven-year-old Thulani asked me if we were “normal.”

A lot streamed through my head (before WiFi it “raced”):

….white South African single male adopts Zimbabwean baby we live in Indianapolis I’m older than all the boy’s friends’ dads and I am single every few weeks we jump on a plane the boy’s chosen grandmother is the whitest woman you’ll ever meet all that white hair and makeup OF COURSE WE ARE NORMAL!*

But, I reply with a question.

“What do you think?”

“We are NOT normal dad,” he says. I brace myself for his explanation.

“Our front gate doesn’t latch….. and we have a truck….” he says.

*this is how normal people write streaming

What your parents really want from you and for you if you are a tween or a teen….

• A window into your experience no matter what activities you are engaged in. Tell us about it, the people, joys, stresses, and, share your insights. Watching you grow into an accomplished, fuller person is among our chief delights. When you shut us out it’s painful for us and limiting for you. Closing off or shutting down is NOT a necessary part of growing up.

• Your freedom is very important to us and when you are trapped or cornered by friends and by some of the drama that comes along with being part of a community it can be as painful for us as it is for you. Open the window a little so we be with you in tough times.

• When you are in a relationship, romantic or casual, where you are not treated with great respect or where you do not treat others with great respect it can be as painful for us as it is for you. Please, let us in.

• Your involvement in things that interest you is very important. We also want you to face challenges to try things that don’t immediately interest you. Staying with what you know can limit you from even greater joys and discoveries.

The Mercury / Monday

Dangerous men

• He tells you how to dress and gets all moody if you don’t agree or obey. I have known men who choose their wives clothing each day or expect to be consulted each day about their clothing choices. (One woman had six really large T-shirts that he had chosen and that was it).

• He stares you down, stares you silent, and calls you stupid. Eyes are often the first means to control and THE look can be flashed in an instant – and then turned off and denied.

• He tells you when you are hungry (or not) and what you should eat (or not).

• Small differences become huge conflicts and escalate in a flash. You let him have his way or be right or win just to avoid the fallout if you don’t.

• He is different in public – most people would never guess he has a violent side.

• His favorite Bible verse is supposedly about your obedience to him.

• He tells you he knows you better than you know yourself and better than anyone else knows you.

• He lies and expects you to lie for him.

• He has moments of white hot anger, even if the dog won’t obey him.

• He keeps you away from your extended family or tries to.

• He takes your keys or purse and he’s been physically threatening – and then is innocent because you caused his behavior.

• He accuses you of unfaithfulness especially when you refuse to give him passwords to your phone or email.

• He checks up on you and tells you jealousy and love go together.

• He hates or rejects a lot of people and thinks most people are idiots.

• In the rare event you drive him, you’d think he was behind the wheel.

Before I am blasted with emails telling me women can also be dangerous (which of course they can be) the overwhelming reality is that it is usually men who are.

Worthwhile goals – with the reminder that everything I write pertains first to me……

• Pay your debts, cash and other forms. Some debts can and will never be repaid and some mistakes will never be fully mended, but you can resolve to not make them again and you can hold yourself accountable for your own actions. Other people may have to suffer and learn from your mistakes, and that is rough enough, but if you don’t suffer and learn from your errors you are setting yourself up to repeat them. Some mistakes are really not worth repeating.

• Forgive completely and to the core. I know, I know, it’s very hard. But not doing so is even harder.

• Be someone’s shoulders – not to cry on although there is nothing wrong with that, but for another to stand on to reach goals he or she would not be able to reach without your help. Forget the costs or the credit or the applause. Empower as many people as possible just because you can.

• Go counter, respond in the “opposite spirit” (Loren Cunningham) – where people are hoarding and selfish be generous, where people are critical and full of judgment offer grace and comfort.

“I have been in a relationship for three years. I heard that my partner would trade me in like he did with girls before. It has made me half the person I use to be. Today he left me and I behaved so badly. How do I become a better person for someone to love? I am tired of the rejection. I am tired of being told I am like a stuck record. I am irritating. I am tired of being told I use my kids to blackmail him.”

You’ve revealed much in your short appeal. Sounds like you give a disrespectful man more power than any man should want and no man deserves. If his reputation includes trading in women then I’d question why you are willing to stay at all.

A man who loves you will inspire you to become twice the person you are. He will derive no joy from diminishing you.

If your partner left you and as a result you behaved poorly then you are hardly accurate if you are blaming him. You behavior is your responsibility just as his behavior is his.

I’d suggest you move on before the humiliating act of “trading you in” occurs.