Stephen’s post today was about “In defense of laziness,” and he pointed out that different lifestyle choices are just that – choices. For instance, he said, if you enjoy living in a pizza box, beer bottle strewn apartment, but then hook up with a neat freak who wants “more” out of life, chances are you’re going to be miserable, or you’re going to change or at least compromise because you love your lifestyle choice. Why? Because one person may see the pizza box life as “lazy,” apparently. I don’t know that the post (for me anyway) was as much about “being lazy” as it was about our choice of lifestyle in many ways.

One of the reasons I’ve been single most of my life is because the men I’ve met have a definite idea of what kind of life they want to live, and shall we say – it’s not usually in sync with my idea of nirvana. They either want (early in my life) a trophy wife, beautiful, fit, sexy thing to show off – or later in life, a rich and attractive wife to support them while they don’t work. Being a 24-hour on demand sex machine, meeting a man’s every whim, is not how I want to spend my life. My generation may have been teens during the women’s equality movement, but they were raised during the 50s and 60s when a woman’s place was in the home, barefoot and pregnant and waiting on their man and that’s what most of them expect in a woman. The 60s and 70s were about free sex for them, not liberation of a woman’s spirit. So, I rarely meet a man who shares my idea of what a relationship is – and when I do, they’re married already. Oh well. I’ll keep looking. There’s a man out there somewhere who wants to RV, fish, travel and work enough to enjoy life, pay the bills and be in the moment, and treat me as an equal! Some men think that people ought to work hard their entire lives and would see me as “being lazy” because I don’t want to retire in a million-dollar condo on the beach and drive a $50,000 car. That’s just not me. I’m not lazy. I just don’t want to work that hard to get, keep and maintain a material goods life.

So after reading Stephen’s post I started thinking about how I would describe how I choose to live and if it’s lazy or not. Some people think so because I’m not chasing the 9-5 and take work home dream. Then I realized that I’m living the way I am and I’m not happy with it a lot of the time. It’s not because I don’t like the lifestyle. It’s because I keep feeling like I have to defend my choice – like it’s wrong somehow. Stephen writes:

Despite working extremely hard through a lot of my life, I’ve been called lazy at times. I’ve called other people lazy when I probably shouldn’t have. Most of the time people are simply projecting their values on someone else. We throw the word “lazy” around far too often when we are judging other people’s free choice to live their lives as they see fit. If you are taking care of yourself and are not a burden on others, as far as I’m concerned you can be as lazy as you want.

Same as me. All through college I took a full load of classes and often worked two or three jobs as well. I’ve been called lazy and called others lazy (some when they truly were) because we were projecting our values on each other. But when it comes down to it, my lifestyle choice is mine, and theirs is theirs.

I have several friends, all younger, who have big homes, several kids, matching SUVs and are scrambling to pay their mortgage and live their American dream. And they are truly happy – challenged at times – but happy. I would enjoy the pool, the vacations, the kids, the yard and the dog, for about a month – then I’d be severely depressed. That lifestyle to me is like a pair of golden handcuffs – shiny, pretty, but restricting. Every decision you make is based on whether it will help or hurt your ability to maintain that lifestyle. I’d like all the stuff – but not enough to commit to doing whatever I had to to keep up that particular lifestyle. Stuff doesn’t matter to me – relationship does. Am I lazy for not chasing it? I don’t think so.

I was once involved with an alcoholic who came with a large extended family, a beach house, nieces and nephews and the sort of family (Thanksgiving, Christmas etc) I wished I’d had as a child. But the drinking, the lack of intimacy, the fights, mistrust, misery and all the things that go with having an alcoholic and non-supportive spouse weren’t enough to keep me living the house-with-a-picket-fence dream. It reminded me too much of my childhood (surprise!). So I left. I’m much, much, much, much happier now than I ever was then. I miss the family stuff, but I’ve found other ways to meet that need – including finding healthy friends and social networks where I feel that same sense of belonging.

So I’m taking care of myself, paying my own bills, and yet until I read Stephen’s post today I didn’t realize my “unhappiness” has come NOT from my spartan lifestyle – but from feeling like I have to defend or fight off people who are telling me how I should be living. I’m unhappy at times because I’m still trying to live just “normal” enough to make other people happy. I’m not focusing enough on ME.

I quietly severed ties recently to another friend who obviously thought my lifestyle wasn’t appropriate. She made comments about everything from the color of my office curtains to the fact I’m still living in, and driving my van. I quit returning her calls and haven’t heard from her in awhile – which is good.

I was thinking about that, then I remembered a friend of my brother’s. He comes from a wealthy family, but after a horrific accident changed his life, he took a different path than the med school, law school, business expectations people had for him. I don’t think he’s ever seriously looked back. He now chooses to make a good living selling t-shirts and hang-gliding. He’s very good at what he does and is very well known for both his designs and his athleticism. Here’s a video – you can see for yourself. He too gets asked, “How can you live like that?” And his answer is perfect, “The pay-off is worth managing the risk.” He’s doing what he loves – flying. If you wonder if the accident changed his life – made him love the freedom of flying more than life on one leg – possibly. But life changes us all, shapes us all.

The point is, I just realized I was focusing more on “How can you live like that?” than on deciding exactly HOW I want to live. It’s a subtle point – but an important one. I’m off to think about it. Do you know how YOU want to live as opposed to how others expect you to be living? Leave a comment. I need the inspiration!

Some people call those emails “The Pottery Barn specials,” or “The Container Store bargains”. I call them “Container Porn.” I thought I’d managed to unsubscribe from them, but one snuck through the spam filter today and triggered my container addiction. As part of my 12-step program I readily admit I am powerless over containers. Seriously. If time, space and money allowed, I’d be swimming in boxes, crates, and matching file folders.

In a past life – one where I actually had an apartment and a job and money to spend, I spent hours drooling over containers. I made friends with people who shared my obsessive compulsive need to compartmentalize everything in my life. I once struggled with how to tell people how tense and irritated it made me feel to see spices and cans of soup sitting around un-alphabetized in their kitchen cabinets. Even worse, seeing that someone mixed tall spice bottles with short, fat spice bottles from a different brand was enough to make me weep.

I remember sighing with relief when I first watched my best friend come home from the grocery store and empty all the boxes of cereal, rice, beans, flour, sugar and whatever into mix and match tupperware before putting them away. When she and her husband fought she would invite me over and we’d wash out all the containers and repack them for therapy. She had kids with sticky fingers and feeling all those freshly filled, clean containers go back on the shelves was pure rapture for us both. Seriously sick, I know.

Other women saved for the jewelry they saw on the home shopping network. I pined for the mix-and-match bowls and handy dandy kitchen cabinet storage rack.

I actually bought those 24 and 48-pack packages of toilet paper and paper towels at Costco and Sam’s club. I just liked the way I felt when an entire shelf or two in my bathroom closet was crammed with toilet paper. After a time in my life when I had to ration toilet paper or steal it from gas station restrooms, the sheer joy of abundance for life’s little pleasures was intoxicating. But being able to put them all in plastic cases designed to hold them and keep them dry was almost erotic. I know. Stupid. Sick. But true.

So I’m working today and get an email from the Container Store in my in-box and I opened it. I know better. But there it was – (see photo above) and I got distracted. I started doodling what I’d like my new organized and containerized office to look like. Sigh.

I confess. I spent several hours this weekend sorting tools and paper and odds and ends into boxes and labeling each one. On one shelf of my office I now have 10 lime green topped shoe boxes ($1 each at Walmart) filled with assorted stuff I’ll never use or find even if I need it. But at least it’s all organized and labeled. I’m still a container queen.

Okay – back to work.

“Oh no,” she said. “Christopher’s been hurt. She sighed – interrupting our conversation and turning to look over her shoulder at the pool.
“How can you hear anything?” I said listening to the roar of kids, splashing and whistles blowing behind her. I was amazed, but truly wondering more if she’d been listening to me at all.
“I was listening to you,” she smiled.

Mothers are also mind readers. I want to go to that school – wherever it is they go, or get a copy of the manual they are all issued when they become mothers. Why? Because the next words out of my friend’s mouth when Christopher came up crying and holding his bloody nose were, “Sure, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” (My mother said that. My mother’s mother said that. Now my friend was saying it. There has to be a book somewhere.)

“It’s not my eye, it’s my dose,” he said stuffily, dripping blood on our towel.
“What I meant was, well, never mind, tilt your head back.”
As my friend tended to her bloody child I thought about the phrase:
“It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” Later I looked it up on the internet and learned it allegedly originated in ancient Rome – where the only rule during wrestling matches was – “No eye gouging.” Everything else was allowed. The only way to be disqualified was to poke someone’s eye out. Of course by the time someone loses an eye, it’s too late for them. Survivor’s guilt kicks in. Everyone is truly sorry for the loss and secretly glad it wasn’t them. But the blind warrior still has to live with their decision. They can sit around and blame whoever they want, but as Christopher was learning, our decisions – good or bad – have consequences. And, whatever the outcome is, accepting it and dealing with it is part of life.

As Christopher’s tears, sobbing, whining and his blood abated Jane asked, “What were you doing?” Christopher tried to explain who had hit him in the nose and cast blame, but Jane wasn’t having any part of it. She kept repeating, “What were YOU doing?” Well, he and his friends were rough housing and his nose got in the way of someone’s elbow in the mix of bodies flailing around on the grass.
“And whose decision was it to play with David and Clay?”
“Mine.”
“And if you hadn’t been rough housing?” He shrugged. Obviously he’d had this conversation before. She waited.
“I wouldn’t have gotten hurt,” he sighed.
“What are you going to do when you go back?”
“Stop playing?” he asked?
“Or?”
“Have fun, but be more careful,” obviously something he’d heard before as well.
With that admission she waved him off – wads of tissue paper still stuck up his nose.
“You took that pretty well.”
“Yeah, well, he’s my third boy. As long as they’re conscious and walking I don’t get too excited if they’re bleeding,” she laughed.

What intrigued me more than her acute sense of hearing and her laid back attitude about the blood was her insistence that Christopher take responsibility for his role in the bloody nose.
“He had a part in it and he needs to see that,” she said.
“I don’t want him growing up blaming everyone else for his decisions or thinking someone is going to rescue him so he gets off scott-free.”

That’s what really struck me. Christopher, “age nine and a half, going on ten” is learning that his choices have consequences, but that they are really his choices and he is responsible for what happens when he makes a choice. He’s learning he can control what happens to him by a pretty significant degree. If he doesn’t do his homework, he’s the one who has to face the teacher, or stay after school, or see his grades affected. His parents don’t rescue him. He gets to experience the full brunt of his decisions. He is also learning that even if he is a totally innocent victim he can still make decisions after the fact to change the outcome – in fact he must take responsibility for outcomes if he wants to deal with the cards life hands him.

When a neighbor backed into his bike last spring it wasn’t his fault. The bike was parked where it was supposed to be, but it was still up to him to get estimates on the repairs and to go over with his father to present the estimates and collect the check from the neighbor. It was his bike so he was still the one who had to go with his father to the bike shop and learn what to do when bad things happen to innocent people. You can sit around blaming and be a victim, or you can take action. Fair? Life isn’t fair. Sitting around and complaining and whining doesn’t accomplish anything. Action does, even if it’s not technically your fault, it’s still your life and that you are responsible for.

It’s a lesson that not many adults seem to have learned. It’s also one of the most valuable lessons Christopher will grow up with. I can’t wait to see how this kid does in college, or in life. He’s already pretty self-confident without being arrogant. It’s something that comes from true self-esteem, not the hyped up “What a great job you did!!” and smiley face stickers that adults put on kid’s papers and projects. It comes from learning, failing and trying again and taking responsibility for his actions – succeed or fail.

I hear from two kinds of people every day – those that blame others for what happened to them as children, and sit back and wait for someone to fix or rescue them; and those who acknowledge what happened to them as children, but who focus on their responsibility as adults to change their lives in the here and now. It’s a subtle difference at first – both were wronged. Both were victims. Both can point to who “did it” to them – whatever it was. But only one knows it’s up them to act.

The big difference is those who own their lives, who act, who heal, who grow, who stop being victims all understand and acknowledge it’s in their power to change their lives. Just as Christopher is seeing that his decisions have consequences for good or bad, and that he can change his outcome with different decisions (have fun, but be careful), we too have the power to change our lives if we own our choices.

“You know you can’t return it if you do that,” I said.

“I’m not going to return it,” she said smugly.

A week later she picked out a name.

“I know what you’re up to Sarah,” her mother told her. “And it’s not going to work. You’re not getting a dog.”

Sarah smiled.

“I’m going to call her Tootsie.”

The week after that I gave Sarah $15 for helping me weed my garden.

She used it to buy a small water bowl and a food bowl which she set on the back porch.

“Don’t encourage her,” her mother told me.

“She shouldn’t work for free,” I protested.

I got the frown and the “bad friend” stare.

Months rolled by and Tootsie’s bowls remained unused and the collar had begun to gather dust on the door knob of Sarah’s room. But she wasn’t deterred.

Instead of watching television in the evening Sarah began drawing pictures of dogs.

“What kind of thoughts are you putting in that child’s head?” Elizabeth asked me.

“I haven’t said anything,” I protested. I too was as baffled by Sarah’s behavior as her mother.

“She’s read something,” Elizabeth said. “Someone has her doing all that ’see it happening’ and visualize your dream’ stuff.”

“Well, it works you know,” I said.

“I know. That’s the problem. We can’t afford a dog,” Elizabeth said, chewing vigorously on a fingernail as she watched Sarah drawing.

Two weeks later I walked into the house and was greeted by a kitten who immediately clawed its way up my leg to swat at the dangling cord on my sweat pants.

“Owch! A cat!?” I asked. “I thought you said no pets.”

“Well, we were afraid someone would show up and give her a dog,” Elizabeth said.

“We’re hoping a cat will take her mind off of the dog.”

Sarah listened, petting the purring cat and smiling. The phone rang and as Elizabeth ran off to answer it I said to Sarah, “Well, you didn’t get the dog you wanted after all.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “I didn’t really want a dog. I just knew if I asked for a cat I’d have ended up with a goldfish and I hate fish.”

Is there something I want and am not going after? I need to follow Sarah’s example and just buy the collar.

Okay, I reread my rant about Apple this morning. My Mac is only getting worse. Apple is not going to do anything. I’m tired of it. You guys are tired of it. I’m saving my $$ for a new machine – I don’t know what yet. The cursor on this one jumps all over the place – Apple charges $49 PER service call and doesn’t guarantee an answer. At least I know I’m helping pay for Steve Jobs multi-billion dollar empire eh?

I wouldn’t be so frustrated if it weren’t for the fact that Apple employees I know, who know me, tell me this is a lemon. Lesson learned? NEVER EVER buy ANY Apple product without buying the Apple Care Warranty.

Other lesson learned? Apple black balls you in their files. If you are the least bit frustrated, rude or don’t worship the brand – your name goes in their files and you don’t get the level of service other people do. FACT. It’s how Apple punishes those who don’t comply. Remind you of say….Hitler? So, suck up to get what you want. Next time I’ll register under a different name and practice sucking until I can draw bowling balls through a garden hose. Whatever it takes to make sure homeless kids get their book.

Anyway. I will deal with my Apple issues and continue to let people know how Apple will let them down…. at least until hell freezes over or they REPLACE my MacBook….whichever comes first (hell is in the lead.)

And I’m going to switch to a PC….and hopefully find something I love as much as Pages. Pages rules – but if the Mac crashes and the cursor jumps all over – who can use it?

Thanks for your letters of support and encouragement. But Apple isn’t going to do anything – as much as all my Apple owning buddies keep saying – it’s not happening guys. Sorry….So I need to change and quit focusing on it. Like I say, deal with the cards you’re dealt. That’s what I’m doing. Moving on!!

I’m writing a magazine article for Airstream Life, and another for submission to The New Yorker (are you listening NY?) I recently interviewed one of the van drivers at NASA about being a shuttle driver for the Airstream Astrovan. One of his off handed comments fascinated me and made me think:

They have walked on the moon, walked in space, orbited the earth, touched the universe in ways none of us ever will. They strap themselves onto rockets, endure incredible G-forces, risk their lives, leave their families, risk death each time they undertake a mission.

And when security shuts down the roads, and an armed helicopter and guard pulls into position behind the transport vehicle there is only 10 miles of long flat road to travel. 10 miles to a shuttle that will hurl them into space again as the world watches in awe. Media, scientists, spectators, all waiting. All watching. And on the return trip – there is relief at having lived through another mission.

The most elite, highly trained group of men and women on the planet traverse that 10 miles of concrete. And what do they do, what do they talk about on the way there or the way back?

“Well,” Ronnie King, a transport driver for NASA said.

“Sometimes we looked at alligators. We’ll see one on the road, they get to be about 14 or 15 feet long you know. And we’ll stop the bus and get out and look at it.”

NEVER forget the wonder in the ordinary things around you. You can walk among the stars – but remember that remarkable can be something as simple as a giant lizard.

I had a sudden and terrifying revelation last month and I’ve spent the last few weeks trembling with a new fear of ignorance. It’s not that I mind being ignorant. I don’t. I like learning. When I don’t know something I ask, or learn, or read or watch a video about it. What scares me is that I just realized  how much I don’t know that I don’t know about! If you’ve ever started a new hobby or job and learned that some little thing you assumed was no big deal could kill you – you’ll understand. I was watching “World’s Dirtiest Jobs” and saw that the host was not allowed to wear a “safety belt” when working on the inside of some dam turbine. Safer to fall 50 feet in the water and be fished out than to dangle by a safety harness the guy said. Odd, I thought. So I looked it up. Yep. Hanging from a safety harness CAN kill you – in as little as 5 to 15 minutes. Who knew? So, deer hunters, construction workers, people who wear these harnesses (and I was one at one time) can die? How did I not know I didn’t know that? It never occurred to me to ask – can a safety harness kill me? So now I’m on this kick about how do we learn what we don’t know we don’t know? Answer: Ask lots of questions and never assume anything.

I spent about 15 minutes last week watching a guy jump start his truck. It made me about five minutes late for an appointment. I told my friend why I was late and she said, “I thought you knew how to jump start a car. You’ve done it dozens of times.”

I nodded.

“I have, but he was putting the negative cable on a nut, not an engine part. I thought you had to put the negative cable to an unpainted piece of metal, but he’s a mechanic and he said that a clean nut is the same thing as unpainted metal, so I wanted to watch and see if it really worked. It did!”

“I thought you were supposed to connect the positive cable to the positive cable and the negative cable to the negative cable on the battery!” she said.

“Only if you want to risk blowing up the battery,” I said. “If the battery won’t start any other way, then the negative post to post will work, but only as a last resort.”

“I didn’t know that! All these years I’ve been doing it wrong!” she said.

At that instant I knew why we were good friends – she was willing to take in new information. She was open to learning – like me. Friends like her are hard to find. More and more I’m seeing just the opposite.

In any good martial arts wisdom movie you’ll see what I’m talking about – it’s the “full cup, empty cup” wisdom – “You can’t put tea (or coffee) into a cup that’s already full.”  You have to empty the cup for new wisdom to flow into it. People don’t know there are things they don’t know they don’t know. Some even assume if they don’t know it, it’s not worth knowing!

Most people like to hold onto that full cup of what they do know. They think they know it all. They really do. I’ve had a week full of people who are convinced that after doing something three or four times they “know it all.” The truth is, they don’t even know what they don’t know.  But who am I to tell them?

Wisdom for the day – it’s not what you don’t know that will hurt you. At least that you know to look out for. It’s not knowing what you don’t know you don’t know that will hurt you. So keep an open mind and a closed mouth. Listen. Learn. If you already know it- great. Someone just re-enforced your knowledge. But if you listen and watch chances are 9 times out of 10 you’ll learn something new – and it might just be the thing that you didn’t know you didn’t know that will save your life.

Part of solving any problem comes down to two things – understanding the difference between responsibility and fault. Fault is about who to blame. Responsibility, in this instance, existential responsibility – our responsibility to ourselves – is what we do for ourselves after we determine who is at fault.

When I was 20 years old I was taking a wrestling class in college and ended up being thrown to the floor and rupturing a disk which compressed my spinal cord and paralyzed me. I literally could not move my legs. The woman who threw me down had violated the class rules and was at fault. If she had obeyed the rules and done what she was supposed to, I might not have been hurt. So she was at fault. Had we gone to court she would have been found negligent and forced possibly to pay for her actions. That is what fault is – who is to blame? Who caused something to happen? It is a matter for the courts or a referee to decide. The result of “finding fault” means we identify who is to blame. Most of us have no problem getting to that stage. A homeless addict or alcoholic may find fault and say:

“I lost my entire family in a car accident and so I started drinking and lost my job and my house and now I’m homeless.” The car accident is to blame. The car accident is at fault. It sparked the subsequent chain of events.”

I found fault when my father died and I quit my job to travel and ended up homeless. My quitting my job was to blame.  I was at fault

People rarely have problems deciding who or what to blame for their lot in life – especially if the culprit is not themselves. They have a much harder time when they are the ones to blame. Either way, and no matter who is ultimately at fault, many of us have an incredibly difficult time learning and deciding to take responsibility for whatever happened. We want whomever is “to blame” to fix it. Sorry. Not going to happen. They may pay for the hospital bills, but it’s up to you to survive the surgery, do the rehab and carve out a new life for yourself. Getting on with, and taking control of your life is YOUR responsibility.

Taking philosophical or existential responsibility for something isn’t the same as taking responsibility for “doing your job,” or doing what is expected or that you agree to do. I’m talking about the responsibility of where you are in life. I’m talking about “owning” your behaviors, thoughts and decisions. When you own something – whether it is a car, a pet, a computer, a sleeping bag – you are responsible for it. You take care of it, fix it, maintain it, repair it, guard it and decide what to do with it. You can decide to be careless or careful. Either way, you are responsible for it and what happens to it is under your control.

I was paralyzed and in the hospital for six weeks, in a wheelchair and unable to walk. Doctors told me I had a 50/50 chance of never walking again. Surgery was an option that might make that 100% chance of never walking again. Either way, I had to do something, to take control of my decision, my body and my life. So I opted for surgery. The odds weren’t good, but they were better than what I had – definitely not walking again. Finding fault, laying blame did me absolutely no good at that point. It didn’t  matter. Having someone to blame would not change what had happened to me.

I had the surgery and within a few months the swelling went down and I was able to walk again. It changed my life. My left leg and foot have always been numb as a result of the accident. I have nerve damage. My foot drags when I’m tired. I have no feeling in much of my lower leg. But I own my condition. I do what I have to do to take care of the leg. I went to physical therapy. I do my exercises. I compensate. No one is going to do that for me. It’s my responsibility to deal with the cards I was dealt.

I was thinking about this this  morning as I looked at my  dead MacBook. Apple is “to blame” for giving me a Lemon. They are “at fault.” But what I do from here on out is my responsibility.  To continue to blame Apple won’t do me  much good. But to take responsibility for my dead computer and to act to find a way to play the cards Apple dealt me is within my control.

I’m saving my $$ and looking at alternatives to make the most of what I have to spend. To do otherwise is to be a victim. I have a 35-year-old van with $800 worth of repairs to do before I can drive it again. I can find someone to “blame” or I can take responsibility and own it and find a solution.

That’s what life is guys. Owning your life, finding solutions, moving forward. Lots of us get stuck in the fault-finding stage – including me sometimes. It’s not fun to admit when WE are the ones to blame for bad decisions or choices. It’s frustrating and painful to see that friends and family and co-workers and strangers are to blame or are at fault too. We can rarely change “who is to blame,” but we can ALWAYS change how we respond.

No, it’s not easy. But what are your options really? But take heart – the good thing that follows taking responsibility is – freedom. Yeah, that’s right. Freedom. When you control your life, when you own it and you take action(s) to change it regardless of who is at fault, you become free. You become free because you are deciding what happens next. Suddenly all kinds of options open up for you.

For me, taking responsibility for my back and legs meant deciding to do more physical therapy, to swim, to work out, to heal. I was no longer a victim or a cripple. I was healing. I was in control of my life, calling the shots and becoming free. Sitting around blaming the person who hurt me wasn’t going to heal my legs or make me walk again.

The “Do something” strategy worked for me then, and has worked for me over the years when I remembered it. So now I’m remembering it. And I’m owning my situation – no car, no computer, no money. And I’m feeling very free right now. It’s so much better than the alternative of feeling like a victim.

What cards has life dealt you this week? What are you going to do with them? Sit on them? Throw them at the dealer? Or play the hand? I hope you play the hand.

I had to laugh. I had to. I have been interviewing people all week for several articles I’m writing on RVing. I spoke with three women today – two older than me, one younger. And they all said pretty much the same thing – “When I learned I could use a bucket with a plastic bag and some cat litter and an old toilet seat for an emergency toilet in my trailer, I was okay with the idea of camping.”

Folks, these are attorneys and government administrators I’m talking to. Women who wear pearls and high heels to work, women who spend more on haircuts than I spend on food every week. And they’re using buckets for toilets because it’s part of camping.

The thing is – when you use a bucket when you’re homeless – it’s sad, disgusting, unhygienic. But when you’re at an RV rally with 40 other trailers with no bathroom and you don’t want to make the trek to the bathroom in the dark (usually on the other side of the campground), it’s “an adventure.”

So yeah, I laughed. How odd we are. What strange meanings we attach to the simple acts of being human. How funny that having a home to return to that has a toilet that flushes can somehow reach out into the wilderness to erase the stigma of a bucket and a bag of cat litter in a cheap little trailer we call “home” for a weekend. When we play at living in a toilet and showerless 20-year-old trailer – it’s fun. When it becomes our only option, it becomes shameful. It’s not the trailer, now is it? It’s the poverty. Let’s stop calling homelessness a disaster. It’s not. Poverty is.

Photo credit: blondieb38 from morguefile.com

“I don’t feel good daddy.” He put one hand on her head and looked down in concern before stooping to hug her.

“Okay,” he said, smoothing her hair back with one hand and feeling for a temperature. He kissed her forehead. “We won’t be long. Let me get these stamps and then we’ll go home.” She looked up at him and nodded. The line moved slowly forward. They stood, side-by-side until they reached the window.

She swayed and hung listlessly, reaching for his hand as he let go of her to pull out his wallet and pay for the stamps and hand the clerk his package.

They almost made it out the door before “I don’t feel so good,” became projectile vomiting – all over the tutu, all over daddy, all over the floor.

He stopped. He knelt down. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket as he watched her struggle with the next wave of nausea. As he watched the tiny mouth open he picked her up and held her up so she could vomit into the trash can. Her pink tutu trembled and he whispered in her ear and kissed the top of her head. He knelt again and wiped her mouth carefully with the handkerchief and found a piece of candy in a pocket.

“It’s okay,” he said matter-of-factly. “Sometimes people get sick. It’s okay. It’ll wash out. I’m worried about you. How do you feel?” And he wiped and he reassured and he calmly took a handful of paper towels someone handed him and cleaned up his fairy princess and himself as best he could, smiling kindly the whole time. Slowly, patiently. No rush. We’re okay. It’s all okay. And then he held her hand and they walked out to the car.

It is in the small things our love shines through.

~ Julian Antonio

Bitter and angry people actually choose to be that way. That’s my conclusion, and the conclusion of most therapists and counselor’s too. Who we are and how we view life is a choice. To be a victim is to invite life to dump on you. To be a survivor is to get through what life dumps on you. To thrive is to turn what life dumps on you into a feast.

I was talking to a friend the other day about being homeless. I was laughing about a lot of the really horrible things that happened and telling him what I learned from the whole experience. I was raving about the gratitude I feel every time I take a shower, or get up in the middle of the night and use a real toilet, or open a cold refrigerator for ice. More than anything else my year and a half being homeless taught me was gratitude. It’s nice. It makes the small favors I get every day so much richer. He listened for a moment and then asked me why I wasn’t bitter about my homeless experience. It kind of took me aback. “Bitter?”

“Yeah,” he said. “A lot of the men and the women I work with at (homeless shelter) are really bitter and I think they’ve got it pretty good. It’s not great, but it’s better than you had it. I want to know why they’re bitter – you’re not,” he said.

I said, “Hang on, let me get the exact definition of bitter and I’ll call you right back.” So I got on line and found out what places on the internet say bitter is:

“Bitter people are those who cannot get past the disappointments of their life. They dwell on them, hug them to their chest and make them the defining factor of their lives”

Or

“They lack gratefulness, are very self centered. When something good would happen to someone they were always so cynical, could never be happy for others. I just took it as envy and jealousy..these two emotions have been around since Cain. Dangerous.”

Or

“The angry person is seeking love and acceptance, but often they are so filled with anger, bitterness, strife, and jealously that love simply has no room in their heart.”

I called my friend back and said, “I’m not bitter because I learned from my experience and I let the bad stuff go…”

The truth is I’ve had a horrible life in terms of what others have done to me, and what has happened to me. Yes, I get angry, but I don’t hold onto the anger. I eventually forgive and forget, let it go and move on. I certainly remember the deed and the person, but I learn from the encounter and avoid them so nothing else happens. I’ve learned that hanging onto the past, reliving it, resenting it, blaming everyone and everything you come in contact with because you’re miserable only makes it harder to move into the future where good things are waiting – if you let them. It also chases away the very people who could help you find good things and want to help.

After we talked I spent the evening looking back at some things, and some people I met on the streets. And I have to say that of the people I knew who were most likely to continue to be chronically homeless, bitterness characterized them most. Even when people reached out to help they responded with bitterness and anger and resentment. They wanted help but there’s not enough help in the world to drown the anger festering in them. So people stop trying to help, which makes them angrier. I wrote them off as mentally ill. There’s no other word to describe someone who deliberately chooses to be miserable in spite of people around them willing to help, to show them a way out, or to listen. They tend to be paranoid -something which forms as a result of their bitterness and people’s reactions to them.

They may occasionally do a “good deed,” for someone – like share a bottle of water, or a sandwich, but the recipient can never be grateful enough, or return the favor in the right way at the right time – so they become even more angry, more resentful. It’s like they turn into bitterness magnets – attracting bad things, bad people and bad experiences to them. They are throwing gasoline on a fire and wondering why it never goes out.

So David, this is my take on what you’re seeing.

People become bitter. They aren’t born that way. Chances are the people you’re working with – the chronically homeless, the homeless by choice, are homeless BECAUSE they are bitter. It’s not something being homeless did to them. They were probably bitter before they became homeless. They probably lost jobs, lost friends, never connected, never recognized – let alone were able to take advantage of opportunities that came their way because they were so busy resenting the world and everyone and everything in it that they can’t see goodness when it bites them on the ass. I’d wager money on the fact they were bitter before they were homeless and their bitterness contributed to their homelessness.

Bitterness is a choice. They will tell you otherwise, but bitter people fail to take responsibility for their life, their choices, their thoughts, or anything that tells them they did something wrong or unwise. When you can’t admit you’re a big part of your own problems you’re not likely to change. So, as long as bitter people continue to keep choosing bitterness they will continue to be bitter.

A lot of happiness in life comes from having a belief in something – a belief that there is a plan, that God loves us, that better things will happen to us. Bitter people have no faith. They are certain that they’re the only ones in the world that bad things happen to. They’re very selfish that way. They even resent it when something bad happens to someone else because they’re so bitter they get jealous when someone else gets a rash of crap too! Strange, but true. Or, they secretly leap for joy at the misery and suffering of others.

Either way, bitter people have a sickness in their souls and I feel deeply, deeply, deeply sorry for them. The only way out of their miserable little worlds is through themselves – through a change of heart, a change of perspective and a change of thought, word and deed. They are the only ones who can decide to drop their resentment, their anger and their wounds and walk away from their pain.

David, keep being the loving, understanding and kind person you are – and hope that God works in them. Other than that? Re-enforce and love the ones who do see life has gifts and that clouds have silver linings. They need love and attention too.

Fleamarkets. Yardsales. Thrift sales. We’ve all been. And the thing I find fascinating is that with all the experts, all the collectors, all the people with the mind set that, “I might find a real treasure” – that so much treasure goes undiscovered. Not only that, much of what is true treasure goes home with people who hold priceless artifacts in their hands who bought it not out of knowledge, but because “it looked interesting.”

And so that multi-million dollar painting or that rare Ming vase will sit on a shelf, gather dust in an attic or be recycled back to another yardsale…as was the case of a rock quite a few years ago. (I apologize…I’ve searched for the news story but can’t find it to get all the details so I’m relying on memory…)

But the gist of it was a geologist stopped into a flea market and was looking around when he spotted a large rock in a shoebox. The sign said, $5. He told reporters later that his hands shook as he took the money out of his wallet and dug for a $5 bill.

“$5?” he asked the gentleman sweating in the folding chair behind the table.

“Yes,” the man apologized, “I know that’s a lot for a rock, but it’s an unusual rock.”

Unusual indeed. It turned out to be the largest blue sapphire in the world worth more like $5 million dollars. Yet the rock COLLECTOR didn’t know what he had. The GEOLOGIST did.

Somewhere in a small fishing village years ago villagers were angered when a dock worker stopped fisherman from cutting up an unusual catch. The worker, a college student, was working to become a marine biologist, making good money working summers at a fishing dock to earn tuition. He was quick to recognize a squid unloaded by a fishing vessel was one of the rarest and largest of a certain species. He stopped fishermen from chopping it up for fish bait and/or calamari and called a university with a Marine Biology program and saved the creature . To the fishermen it was a week’s pay. To scientists it was a priceless discovery.

Just last year a man had a childhood toy appraised only to find it was a million dollar artifact his archeologist grandfather had given him years ago. It languished in a shoe box under his bed for decades and was probably destined for a flea market as well until a an expert appraised it. Odd isn’t it? That there are so many ordinary things with extraordinary value all around us. And we fail to spot it.

Every day one of us tells ourselves, “I am remarkable. I am different, unique and good. Why doesn’t anyone notice?” Because my friends, we live in a world of rock collectors and dock workers, not geologists and marine biologists.

I have, on the one hand, a client who was thrilled to get my services for $100 an hour today. On the other – another client is screaming that I am charging $20 for a project I committed to months ago out of fear my rent wouldn’t get paid if I didn’t. Rock collector? Geologist? Dock worker or Biologist?

I ask, when we meet people what do we see? The “odd looking rock,” or the uncut sapphire within? We are all clamoring to be remarkable, to stand out…but as I wander the internet and the world I see rooms full of uncut gems, odd rocks, rare squids…. There are the polished garnets who want to be diamonds and the diamonds who think they’re only garnets. There is talent around me that I wouldn’t recognize if it bit me. I’m no better than the worst rock collector. But I do know to listen to my gut and to trust my intuition and if something or someone seems “interesting,” I go with it. I move in to take a better look.

But it doesn’t matter how remarkable or valuable you or your product/service is if you’re no more than an “interesting rock.” The world, sadly enough, is filled with rock collectors – not geologists. So how do we move beyond that?

If your sense of worth comes from the value the dock workers and the rock collectors place on you…it’s hard to believe you can “do better.”

We too easily dismiss the “odd,” or the “unusual” and go on in search of the cut diamond ourselves, yet we expect others to see our potential. I marvel at these stories every time I read them – stories of discovery but really more stories of rescue. We have a chance to be geologists and Marine biologists by spotting the rareness in each other. I hope you all take time to stop and really look at the “odd,” or the offbeat or the quiet ones….the “rocks” and squids and what looks for all the world like a battered toy and see their true value.

(Forgive me if I’ve posted this before. It’s one of my favorite blog posts.)

I still drive that same van. This week I had to go to court to pay $101 for not having an inspection sticker. I had one, but it was expired because I let it sit in a driveway for 8 months while I took care of a friend who had health problems. I drove her car, neglected mine and didn’t notice the inspection sticker. So I got a ticket.

Lesson One: Look out for number one FIRST.

Then I had it inspected, but it failed inspection. The judge didn’t give me a chance to explain that. He wouldn’t look at the documentation or photos I had of the work I had had done since the inspection, or even take three minutes to shut up and try to understand what I was trying to say. He was too busy telling me what I “should” have done and assumed I had or hadn’t done. His mind was made up about what he thought I said.

“Next.” Justice marches on and he has fees to collect. It would have saved me $30 if he had listened. But he didn’t. I knew he wouldn’t. Judges never listen to those who appear without a lawyer. My one fantasy is that when all lawyers get to the throne of God and think they get to defend their sorry butts before the ultimate judge, God says, “Next!” and kicks their sorry butts to hell and never gives THEM a chance to say anything.

Lesson Number Two: Save myself the aggravation and accept our justice system sucks and send in the blood money and don’t waste a morning in court.

Anyway, I spent almost $600 this month fixing what wasn’t up to state standards so I could get it reinspected today. I did about $100 worth of stuff (parts) to it myself (wipers, bulbs, headlights etc) to save $$$ on labor.

So today I went to another inspection station (Tuffy Mufflers on 1150 Richmond Road in Charlottesville – they ROCK they are SOOO awesome. I LOVE them. If you need work, go. They are so good! They didn’t even charge me for the re-inspection since I can’t legally have another one. They just considered it an estimate. Their customer service is incredible. They are so good – especially Chris, the manager.) Anyway – the other station I took it to before was busy. The Tuffy station found another $673 worth of stuff that needs fixing that the first place “missed”. And they can’t issue another rejection sticker because the state only “allows” you one. So I can’t drive it unless I want to risk another $101 fine and court costs.

Lesson Three: There are good, kind businesses in this world.

It needs:

Brake Springs, rear wheel seals, brake shoes and labor on the brakes – $216.63
Lower Ball Joints and labor, front end work – $319.98
A marker bulb (the light on the side of the van so people coming from the side can see me), a new lens for the side light and electrical testing to figure out why my bulbs keep shorting out. -$56.22 for all that.
And finally, my horn doesn’t work, and neither does the defroster or the backup lights – more shorts since they work sometimes.

So, for about $673 for that, and another $50 to get the side door fixed so it opens properly…I’ll have transportation again. But I don’t have the $$. Clients are slow to pay, or cancel projects. I have rent on my storage unit, gas, food, and whatever….and have to spend the next month “robbing Peter to pay Paul” basically while not being able to drive to the grocery store or library or wherever. I have a dentist who is letting me get my teeth fixed on the installment plan, but I can’t drive to see him (three hours away) now either.

Lesson Four: Fire clients who can’t get it or keep it together and don’t respect me or my time or the value I bring to their projects so I can afford to keep my van on the road.

It made me realize again how close I still am, how close so many of us are, to seriously being over the edge. I have jobs coming in, but when a client bails on a project (a $300 one) as a client did this week, it really puts me in a tough spot.

So, that’s what it’s like to be one of the “working poor.” I’m grateful for Tuffy, grateful that eventually this month I’ll have the $$$ to pay for the repairs, but still very, very much aware that an illness, another client bailing, or any one of a dozen things could happen…this Mac crashing for the 40th time…and I’d be homeless for real. This time without wheels. Being an entrepreneur isn’t for sissies – that’s for sure.

Lesson Five: You don’t get tempered steel without hammering, heating and beating the hell out of it. I’m on my way to being God’s razor edged wonder.

People in general are cruel when it comes to the homeless. On the one hand they want to help them, but ONLY if the person is TOTALLY without resources and destitute. And THEN they blame them for being that way! Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard extreme anger, even rage at the idea that a homeless person has a cell phone! Wake up and get a life. Pre-paid cell phones are as cheap as $19 for the phone and $10 a month for service. That means the homeless person has access to a way of calling the police, a friend, or applying for a job. Yet the media would have us all believe that a homeless person with any technology, including a $10 Walmart watch, is a liar, scammer or cheating the system, or using the phone to deal drugs. Get over it.

The fact is, 85% of homeless people had real lives before the economy and lay-offs forced them out of their jobs and homes. They were middle-class, working people with boats and camping gear and ipods and cell phones and laptops and cars. And now they’re homeless, unemployed and have sold, pawned or put everything they have into storage with friends or family members or at a public facility while they search desperately for jobs. They may get stuff out of of storage to sell, or they may get rid of everything they own for the money. Giving up their cellphones and laptops and tools is like throwing away a life jacket. Possessing a few high-tech pieces of equipment is not an indication a person is not homeless. Be glad if a homeless person does have those items – it means they’re doing everything they can to hang onto them and to find a job.

When you’re poor and you lose everything then the slippery slope becomes a deadly cliff. You can no longer afford to keep your car repaired so it breaks down. If you can’t get it inspected or insured you’ll probably lose it – and the only chance you have to get to a job – particularly if you live in a rural area. If you get a ticket on top of everything else and can’t afford to pay it – you lose your driver’s license – making it even more difficult to get a job.

The same holds true with clothes, health and everything in your life. Without the means to keep things repaired, licensed, turned on or operating in order to make a living – you’re out of luck. So then the bleeding hearts come along and insist that you be totally bereft of even a $20 prepaid cell phone? Give me a freaking break. Then put YOUR cell phone aside for a month and see how well YOU function without it. Get the picture? Then stop condemning the homeless for acquiring the tools they need to find or create work and get off the streets. Better yet, buy them a phone and a year’s worth of service. Quit judging and start helping. If you’re not helping solve the problem you probably are the problem.