"With a Conscience" -"Questions"

                "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm not going to speak for anyone else but I have quite a few "why" questions on my plate and sadly, or perhaps curiously, no one, family, friends, no one has been able to help me answer them. For instance...

• Why are babies constantly used in commercials that have absolutely nothing to do with well...babies?  To me, the message is "Let's just push our children to grow up faster so that they'll become savvy, stock marketeers and credit card holders who will make millions before they're out of  diapers.  Or perhaps, they're saying to the American public, "You have the intelligence of an infant and can't be trusted to take care of your money.  Soooooo....we'll invest it for you."  We all understand now, how well that worked out.
• Why is it that every time I go to the pharmacy, there's a new product on the market for wrinkles and age spots?  Really?  Why are women constantly under fire to get rid of those well deserved signs of maturity?  I earned every single one of my imperfections.  To deny that they exist or that I can wipe away years of life's trials and errors and experience is unthinkable.  I look in the mirror and see a survivor in every line. Please note--extreme facial hair along the upper lip is another story.  Plucking will always make sense to me.
• Why is it cute for advertisers and their clients to misspell words continually?  I went to "Planet Fitness" for my regular hour of torture and on the wall is their "Customer Creed" with more misspellings and capitalization errors than I've seen in one 8th grade research paper.  Why?  When did grammar become passe folks? You don't even have to spell anymore if you own a tablet or iPad computer because with a few touches on the screen, the computer spells for YOU!!!  Really? Explain this to me please because correct me if I'm wrong, young people still have to write essays for college entrance exams and standardized tests (This will be another "why" shortly.) and oh yeah, COLLEGE CLASSES?  Try landing a job when you don't care to  spell out the words that usually take the place of smiley faces nowadays. It's not cute to play on the public's ignorance nor is it appropriate to encourage ignorance as a way to gain our attention to buy more of your products.  Perpetuation of ignorance is precisely why our "Education Nation" is suffering terribly.   Writing is our bastion of self-expression and our door to a civilized world where ideas grow and multiple into concrete solutions to our toughest problems.  Why we have chosen to cheapen that is something I do not understand.
• Now, on to standardized testing.  Why have "we," I mean "them" - Those elected to be our voice in government- decided  that standardized testing is the only way to gauge what a student in public education is learning? Isn't the point of testing to actually assess what a teacher has actually taught during the year?  Why have the  assessments of our children been taken out of the hands of those best suited and with the expertise to do the assessing?  If this is as creative and as bold as we can be in making our young people more competitive, than this is exactly why we are having the problems we have.  Education has become more expensive but not necessarily more effective and you know why?  Because, we turned our back on the importance of parenting.  Within the past two decades, it has become more fashionable to have children, but not necessarily to parent them.  Children need to be reminded that while Mom and Dad are out working two jobs to pay for cell phones, Nikes and X-boxes, and the mortgage, they have a job too....and that is to become educated and take their education seriously. 
• Why is McDonald's promoting healthy food like oatmeal and yogurt?  Face it "Mickey D's"....You're not healthy.  We don't go through the "drive-thru" to be healthy.  We "drive-thru" because we want the double cheese burger and fries, with milk-shake because we've had a crumby day.  Stop pre-tending you're health-oriented.  You're not and we accept that.
• Why are petite styles in stores like Macy's and J.C. Penney's NOT petite?  Look, I'm 53 inches tall and when I go shopping, I want to go to the petite section your department store, pull out my size 8 pants and be done with it!  "Really?"  Come on!  I am a true petite!  I don't want to go and pull a pair of pants off the rack and have a "petite" pant flow 24 inches beyond my ankles!!!  Really? Same goes for skirts, dresses and oh yes, blouses.  My arms are NOT the size of a tall person's so stop promoting petite styles that aren't well...petite.
  
  I know folks, this was a lot to take in for this column...but it was fun!  I'm being honest! It was fun!  Be well...I hope some of you got a laugh.

"With a conscience" - "Marriage-The Final Frontier"

Marriage- "The final frontier"

"A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it." - John Steinbeck

Statistics are showing that fewer and fewer heterosexual couples are choosing marriage these days.  I find this interesting because I have found the last nine years of my committed relationship to be anything but boring. How did I manage to "buck the trend?" It's like getting a tattoo.  Years ago they were unusual and not the trend.  Now everyone has them so where's the individuality? Was getting married suddenly "trendy?"

Since I met my husband, July 11, 2003, we have pretty much gone against the norm in just about all of those typical expectations you see in many marriages. My husband appeared when I least expected it.  That's what happens when you see your world through the lens of a resolutely single person.  

It started with a place I'd never go in a million years.  A singles dance.  It continued to a beach in Jamaica and upon our return we had a huge party on our 12 acres with the best family and friends anyone could hope for in this world. I know we didn't do things the "conventional way" but when you're in your 40's, you really don't need to play by the old rules.  Marriage is the oldest rule in the book.  We both said our vows privately, on a beach, with the sun-setting.  Privacy between a couple is paramount. I learned that the hard way. It is the single most important lesson I learned in my marriage.

All of sudden, what was "mine" was not just "mine" anymore.  I had to share.  I had to share my space, my time, my family, my friends, everything. There was and still is, a constant need to "negotiate" from who fills the toilet paper in the bathroom to cooking, and the countless other responsibilities that no one ever thinks about when they fall in love.  The negotiating is endless and yes, sometimes, exhausting.   There was someone challenging many of the decisions I was making and needed to make.  There was someone in my life who dramatically cared about my health and well-being.  At first, I felt over-whelmed and burdened by all of the attention.  That's what happens when you're independent.  Now someone wanted me to depend on him and I had a hard time doing that at first.  I didn't want to depend on anyone.  Now, someone was asking me to do the unthinkable.  This is a warning.  You'd be extremely surprised at what you'll do when you fall in love.  

Marriage is not for the weak of heart. It's not for the stubborn either.  Sometimes it's fabulous, bold, if not life-affirming. Other times, it's gut-wrenching, incredibly scary and uncertain.  What do you in those times?  We all know about the non-negotiable situations or at least we should.  BUT, in the normal day to day muck and mire where most marriages can find themselves, what do we do?  Nine years has taught me that love isn't poetry, song or cards; it's  communication.  Although I am always in need of romance, communication overrules all of it.  My husband and I are still learning how to improve our communication. The important thing is we want to improve.  It's a process and not a perfect one either.

Talk, argue, negotiate but never in front of family or friends.  Let some things go. Turn a deaf ear unless you feel strongly about a specific situation.  Then wait until you're in a neutral zone to explain your side. Negotiating should never be done at bed time and by all means, when something important has to be discussed turn the television and all electronic devices off.  Stop everything and listen. Look into your partner's eyes. By the way, you can go to bed angry.  Just don't go to bed resentful.  If you are getting resentful, that's a danger.  Figure out how to turn that around and quickly.  The build up of resentment is how most marriages fail or end up unhappy.  Life's too short and too precious.

I thought I married my best friend.  But really, I married the one man who ended up being my "mirror" and I his.  

One of my husband's favorite things to do is plant things and make them grow.  He's a naturalist.  That's where he is completely and totally his happiest.  As it turns it out, he took "this little seedling" and made it grow too.  The fertilizer was, understanding, stubbornness, honesty, courage, tears...That's a marriage and although there are never any guarantees in this crazy, ridiculously unbalanced world we live in, my roots have finally been planted in reality.  That is an anniversary gift that's hard to come by and even harder to forget.

"With a Conscience...." - "The Case For Doing Nothing"

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.”

      I've just spent the past three to four days doing very, VERY little and it was all on purpose.  I made a conscious choice to do as little as possible.  I used to believe that procrastination was a curse.  My father, bless his soul, was a conscious procrastinator.  My mother, my grandmother, my sisters were not.  The women in my family did not procrastinate.  We were poised to continual activity and it's still like that today.  As a teenager, I legitimately tried to do as little as possible.  This did not sit well and so, I learned that procrastinating was not a way to win approval.  

      Then a miracle occurred.  I turned 50.  I know; there are plenty of 50 year old people out there.  But you can't escape the fact that as each year, each hour, each minute goes by, additional mileage of the heart and mind are a reality if not a blessing.  So the day I turned 50, I realized that the world was going by very quickly and no matter how hard I was working, or more importantly, wanted to work, I never wanted to be accused of being lazy.  I come from a long line of focused, hard working women.  I woke up at 50 exhausted.  I wondered if my sisters and my mother felt exhausted at 50 too.  But, I also knew that they would never complain about it.  

     So, when my 50th birthday came around, I made a pact to procrastinate.  I set the alarm a half hour later than usual.  Instead of five a.m., I would awaken at 5:30 a.m.  I even changed the sound of the alarm, to a kinder, gentler sound.  Gone was the music blasting from my iPod.  I would awaken in a more civilized way. Procrastination meant more civility. I decided to buy clothing that I didn't have to iron!  I figured out that if I didn't feel like rushing to get something done...guess what?  It got done!  Funny how that ends up happening.

     I decided that since I was 50, I didn't need to drive over 55 miles per hour...EVER. I have probably angered a whole lot of people on the way to work but "too bad, so sad."  I've slowed down and I like it.  I also took time to put my seat belt on even though it used to cut into my neck until I discovered I could take the time to adjust the belt so that it didn't feel like I was tied to a guillotine.  (And by the way, to the speed racing brat who passed me on a double yellow line on my way to work, "Was it worth it to be one car ahead of me at the stop light?")

Procrastination is a sign of good planning and well, living just a simpler, happier life.  It doesn't mean you're lazy or unmotivated.  It simply means that your priorities have changed. It may even help you sleep easier at night...but that's for more advanced procrastinators.  After all it is an art.