Author: Ara

Creator and consumer who researches the link between public health and personal happiness. Educated in public health and human behavior. Masters of Public Health from the UT College of Medicine.

Remove the stinger from your life

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I walked up smiling, carrying my cooler. My friend called from his patio, “Is that an electric cooler?”

“Yep,” I said.

His neighbor came out on her porch and waved.

I said “Hey” and then felt a sharp pain on my foot and exclaimed, “Ow!” I quickly set down the cooler and bent over my foot.

The neighbor said with concern, “Oh, did a bee sting you?”

“I think so,” I looked down. “The stinger is stuck in my foot. Should I pull it out?”

She said, “I think you need Benadryl.”

My friend said, “I have cortisol cream, but you need to wait before applying it.”

I sat looking at the stinger and said, “I heard if you pull it out, you’ll squeeze more venom into your body.”

“Let me know, I can get the cream,’ my friend offered.

“I’m fine,” I replied, as my foot began to throb.  I looked at them for help, but all they could do is stare attentively.  Ignoring the pain, I limped further up to the house. Then I stopped.  I bent down and without thinking about the pain, I swiftly removed the stinger.

Instead of addressing the problem, we overanalyze and avoid it

My friends, meaning well, wanted to treat the symptoms before we addressed the cause. I think we do it all the time. We know what our problems are, although we distract ourselves from them. Some of us tell ourselves that we don’t have a problem, or it’s not big enough to be concerned about. We can also blame others for our situation, so we avoid taking responsibility.  Others use the delay or “I don’t have the time” option: “Once I get to my vacation, I’ll be happy, so I’ll tolerate working this job for now.”  Or there’s the simple distraction of money, better stuff, or loved ones: “Once I get that job that pays more” or “that new car” or “that girlfriend/boyfriend”, I’ll be happy.  And then there is the overanalyzing, which delays taking action.

Changing our lives may not be as easy as flicking a stinger away, but we may exaggerate the pain of removing that stinger from our lives.  So make a plan and get started on removing the stinger. Our friends, family, or partners aren’t going to remove it for us.

Food is more than fuel

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On my way home last week I stopped at Chipotle, a restaurant famous for its burritos. After I got my food, I made my way home, and I passed a Firehouse Subs restaurant, a McDonald’s, a Taco Bell, and a Burger King. The drive-thrus were lined with cars with people waiting for their own quick meals. At home, I ate the burrito, my hunger driving me past savoring the taste to get the food in my stomach. Afterwards, I grabbed a bag of banana chips, and as I snacked, I looked at the ingredients.  The first ingredient read, “Bananas”. The last one read “Banana flavor”. As I sat there on my couch, I felt full and satisfied, and ready to tackle my chores, but I didn’t feel good. Why?

Although the food was real, I didn’t know what I’d eaten

The restaurant workers were nice enough. The cashier even talked to me beyond the usual banter, but all I did was hand over my credit card. A quick swipe and I was done. I had eaten alone, speaking to no one.  I had finished quickly, but usually I am the slowest eater in the dinner party. I chew and talk, while others chew and swallow.

I like picking parsley from my garden and chopping it on my cutting board

From my couch, I looked out my window, and saw the parsley growing in my garden. I liked hearing it crunch under my knife, and suddenly smelling its fresh and pleasant fragrance. I would mix it into the noodles that I had cooked, and the aroma of the tomato sauce and capers and parsley danced together into my nose. I would look at what I’d made, swirl a bite onto my fork, and chew it. It was a good experience. It made me happy.

I knew it would be a long time before I’d have the full and satisfied feeling of a restaurant burrito and  bananas with banana flavoring.

And that was ok by me.

9-11 is the wake-up call that is still ringing

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Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. I listened to news reports about the attacks, and grew sad in remembering what happened. Then I tried to think about why those men would want to attack the US.

Ignorance promotes aggression

If you truly knew your enemies, you would not only see them as having different ideas, but as a father or mother, son or daughter. They love their family and try to help provide a good life. They just want to be happy… just like you and me. Ignorance dehumanizes the Americans that are being targeted. And ignorance about the terrorists leads us to fear them.  Fear is a feeling of insecurity. When we don’t know a person, we’re cautious.  And when we don’t know a situation, we are fearful.  But knowledge gives us power over the situation, and it gives us the power to decide whether attacking is justified. Those who call for war sound the most confident, but in fact, they are the most fearful, whether they are patriots or terrorists.

The 9-11 attack is the wake-up call

Did the terrorists surprise you on 9-11? They surprised me. I realize now that the attack is our wake-up call to find out what is happening in the world. The attacks happened in a world in which the US spends massive amounts of money and sells loads of military weapons. In fact, the US is the biggest spender and biggest weapons exporter of any other country in the world. We provide money and arms to different countries and different groups. Some of them have fundamentalist religious beliefs and/or have powerful ethnic grudges. Our money influences these alliances and animosities. After years of involvement, we have developed a worldwide reputation, accurate or not.

With our money comes great power, and great responsibility

How do we stop future terrorism? We start taking responsibility. We start thinking about the consequences of our actions. What do you think we can do to prevent people from developing a mentality that would make them attack us? Asking these questions is part of being an accountable and empowered American.

I know we can do it.

Labor Day reminds me how to respect the laborer

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This Labor Day makes me think of the workers who help me get everything I have. The food in my kitchen, the tv in my living room, or the car in my lot.  I thought, “Many of my dollars are paying people outside of my community, and so taking jobs and money from the people in my community. The right thing to do is buy goods that support my local economy” And then I realized that I cannot do this. My stuff didn’t come from one company, although there is only one company name stamped on the label. Many hands from all over the world contributed to each of those things, from their inception in creative minds in one country, to their manufacture in another that used supplier parts from still other countries.  But I can still make a right decision given this.

Making a right decision requires us to ask WHY it was the right thing to do

The supply chain is too diverse. And some out-of-state/country companies have invested in the people around me to make their product, like the Honda plant just outside of my city. What can I do? I can become more aware about where my stuff comes from, so that I know why I’m making the decisions that I am. I should require a company be able to tell me where their product comes from.  This way, I’m accountable for my actions.

Consumer accountability is empowering and it respects the laborer

Accountability gives our lives meaning. Without this, we are just consumers, and we cease to become members of a community.  As society becomes more complex, we must keep this power, because otherwise we are losing our freedom of choice and our connection to other people. And I don’t think anyone of us wants that.

Evolving towards unhappiness?

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My days felt sluggish. Have you ever felt like your body was walking through mud?  This is how I felt.  Work was not challenging me, and it had been three weeks since I had been to the gym. I wanted to get back, but only out of habit.  Then, in the middle of my workout, after I’d pushed past the point when my mind had told me to stop, I was overwhelmed, but not from any physical pain.  I realized how much I needed a consistent challenge in my life, and I wondered: Do most people get challenged in their daily lives?

Challenges bring us happiness

I looked in the gym mirror, breathing deeply. I saw past my face and looked into my eyes, and everything fell away. I didn’t worry about what I needed to do later, or what I should be doing next week. Their time would come, but right now, I knew I was ready, and whatever happened, it would be ok.  I took the barbell onto my back smoothly, and balanced it there, feet planted firmly on the ground, and I gazed forward undistracted, but then I thought: Why don’t I feel like this all the time?

Work gives value to our life

Today we have evolved to get things done faster and with less work.  Or we’ve evolved to a point we don’t need to do them at all. In the past, the time we spent resulted in a barn, a pair of pants, or a tasty meal. With exercise, there is nothing tangible.   All we gain is the feeling that we’ve challenged our whole being, our heart, mind, every living part of us. It is a happiness that lasts all day, and can integrate into our whole life.

I think this is something we can all afford to spend time doing.

It’s easy to follow the crowd, even when the crowd is wrong

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I went to a fitness expo and was walking by the vendor booths, where they were giving away samples of supplements and magazines. I was walking around the side of the area, past an unmarked table that was stacked with packages of sports drinks. I saw a person reach in a package and take a bottle. Soon there was another person, and then another, and then a whole crowd of people started taking bottles. A few people even grabbed a whole package! Soon, a sale representative of the company selling the product noticed and came over to stop it.

I wanted to steal a bottle or two after I saw that there were so many people who were involved. I thought that it wasn’t really wrong since the company was planning on giving it away. I don’t feel good about my inaction, because I should have said something to prevent others from stealing.  And then I thought of my banking.

What does stealing sports drinks have to do with your bank?

The name of the bank is Goldman Sachs, and it made some really bad investments worth $1.2 billion. To try to save itself, it sold the investments to its customers and then made a $2 billion bet that the investments would crash. It didn’t tell its customers it bet against the investment.  And then the investments did, in fact, crash.  The federal government fined Goldman Sachs $550 million for fraud, and then gave it about $13 billion to keep it and its customers from going bankrupt.

As an individual, you have little power, but together, we can make a moral society

Would it have made a difference if I had said something while people were stealing the sports drinks? Possibly. There may have been too many people for my voice to have made a difference. Individual action has little power. But when that one person who speaks out becomes two people, and two becomes four, and four becomes thousands, then our actions become quite influential.  Because other people continue to use Goldman Sachs as their investment bank does not make it right.  Neither does our government allowing the bank to continue doing business. Tell three of your friends about what Goldman Sachs did to its customers and let’s ask ourselves whether we want to support a dishonest business.

I know we will make the right choice.

For details on the Goldman Sachs fraud, please go to the Rolling Stone article

Do the right thing, especially when no one else does

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Tomorrow is Monday, the head of the work week but the weekend is recess time. This is my life, like it is for most of you, but this blog is about jumping off the swing between play and work.

I was sitting by the pool one weekend, reading The Art of Non-Conformity, by Chris Guillebeau. The book is one of the main drivers that has empowered me to let go of the swing. I recommend setting aside a snippet of your day for one week to have Chris realign your perception of work and life. As I lay on my lounge chair reading, I noticed two young girls jumping into the pool. I saw one climb up on a molded plastic chair. The chair wobbled and tipped slightly as she jumped into the water. I watched the other girl start climbing up on the chair. I spoke forcefully across the pool, “You guys, that is bad idea.” They both immediately stopped what they were doing. One of them quietly said, “Ok.”

There was a couple close-by to me and the guy said, “Good going, man.”

I replied, “I couldn’t help saying something. It would ruin my day to see someone wreck themselves right in front of me.”

And the two girls were right in front of us all. It was a small pool, with at least five other people besides me sitting around it.  Why hadn’t anyone said anything?

During the week, we gather into groups, in our offices, managed by others and by our schedules. We know our responsibility there. When we are not working, we are back on the playground, but without our teacher. Whose job is it to supervise? We supervise ourselves. We decide when something is right or wrong and it is our responsibility to speak up.

I felt good after preventing the girls from having an accident. But I felt strange that I had hesitated because of the acceptance of the others.  I think everyone has the same sense of right and wrong. We just need to be reminded that we can express it, and take responsibility for something outside of our work description. We should not be afraid to speak out even though no one else will.

Our existence as human beings depends on it.