Such a long long time to be gone

                                                                                                                                            

Such a long long time to be gone
and a short time to be there
Grateful Dead- Box of Rain

   All the people we used to know
   They're an illusion to me now
   Some are mathematicians
   Some are carpenter's wives
   Don't know how it all got started
   I don't what they're doing with their lives

   Bob Dylan- Tangled up in blue

   How do we reconcile the past with the present, 
   when we don’t feel comfortable in either one?

   October Road

Every summer I get this odd kind of feeling. There’s something so fleeting about it, and sometimes in the middle of a summer day, I start thinking about all the places I’ve been. Sometimes I even sit and time travel for a moment as I watch the sun go down. I think about being 18 and sitting by the river in my hometown, wondering if I was ever going to get a chance to leave. I think about being on top of a mountain in Yellowstone Park, or drinking beer in a crazy Montana bar, and I go back for a short while to those places. 

And then the moment passes. I take measure of where I am, and wonder what happened to all of the people I used to know and have such good times with. You get so close to people and make such amazing friendships, and then one day you look up again and find yourself in a completely different incarnation. Seasons change and people come and go, and we are often left wondering what happened. 

Modern technology has helped a little bit. We can use Facebook or something similar to catch up with people or to take a glimpse of the lives they are living now, but sometimes this doesn’t really scratch the itch. Many memories get frozen in amber, and we have a hard time reconciling how the people we used to know don’t seem to be the same anymore. We want them to stay the way WE remembered them, and when the way they are now conflicts with the way we see them, a strange loop of perception can occur, where we are left wondering if maybe all of our experiences were just some kind of a dream.   

                                                                                                    

In thinking about this issue, I thought about an exercise I sometimes give people in counseling, where they are instructed to write their own obituaries. Although it sounds a little morbid, it sometimes helps people clarify what it is they want to accomplish during their short stays here on planet earth. How would you like to be remembered, and what would you want people to say about you? “Bob spent his later years mostly eating Doritos and playing Xbox 360, he died in his beloved sweatpants he had worn for 27 straight days.” Probably not. Probably you would want the people you had shared significant experiences with to remember you and say something about the good times you had together. 

Which makes me wonder why we don’t just go ahead and do these things while we are still drawing breath. Stephen Levine posed the question, “If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say?  And why are you waiting?” Why DO we wait to do these things, and where does this apprehension come from? I think we get trapped in our comfort zones at times, and settle into a kind of complacency where we just kind of survive on auto-pilot rather than think too much about it.

 I recently read an article called “The top five regrets of the dying” which was written by a nurse who had spent a lot of time with people at the end of their lives. Two of the five items involved courage, which I think informs so much of our happiness, but it was another item that really caught my eye. The item was “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.” In explaining this item, she writes, “"Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."

Powerful stuff, which I think speaks to the point I’m trying to make about stepping out of our comfort zones and picking up the phone. I know for me personally I have vowed to do a little more than examine the pangs of nostalgia I feel and take a little more action. So what are YOU waiting for? Pick up the phone and call an old friend you haven’t talked to in a while. Make peace with someone you are having a silly and stupid argument with. Make plans to visit a place that has special memories for you. Pick up that guitar that is gathering dust in the closet and give it another shot.

Such a long long time to be gone, and a short time to be here..

Bang the Drum Slowly

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. 

~Victor Frankl

But I tried didn’t I? At least I did that.

~Randall P. McMurphy- One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The Pacific Northwestern salmon beats itself bloody on its quest to travel hundreds of miles upstream against the current, with a single purpose, sex of course, but also... life

~Drew Baylor ~Elizabethtown

When I was a young man in my early teens, I became interested in a movie called “Bang the Drum Slowly.” It was a baseball movie, where Robert DeNiro plays a young catcher dying of a terminal illness, who has one last season in the majors before his illness takes him. Something about the movie and this phrase captured my imagination, and sometimes during particular moments that I thought life was moving too fast, I would repeat this phrase to myself. Bang the Drum Slowly. Slow down a little life, and let me enjoy the moment. I’ll get older soon enough.

And sure enough I did. I had all kinds of dreams as a kid that didn’t exactly materialize, but some other ones came to fruition instead. So here I sit, a psychologist, not quite old, but not exactly a young man either, trying my best to help other people realize their own dreams, or at least make the kind of changes in their lives to find some kind of happiness.

I was reminded of all of this, because this week one of my patients passed away when her heart simply didn’t work anymore. It was my first death since I’ve been a psychologist, and it hit me pretty hard. This is a letter I got from her a couple of months before she died.

I share this on these pages, because in many ways I was incredibly proud of this woman, and her willingness to make changes in her life, even as it was coming to an end. She could have simply thrown in the towel and kept on doing what she was doing, but instead she chose to try and change a few things in her life and take responsibility for her own happiness. It’s something so few of us are truly willing to do, although if you ask people they will usually tell you otherwise. What we really often want is someone else to change. In reality however, the only way we change the temperature of our own happiness in any kind of lasting way, is to make some internal changes in ourselves. The people and places can and do change, but in the confines of our inner worlds, the song remains the same. Confronting and changing these inner workings is difficult work, and in this case, a very brave woman was able to do this. Right at the end of her life, sure, but still, much like McMurphy in Cuckoos’s Nest, she tried goddamnit. At least she did that.

The saddest part of the story was that she had so little time left after she decided to make these changes in her life, and I couldn’t help but wonder why the drum couldn’t have beat a little more slowly for her. So much of life seems to work like this. We thrash and we struggle and we flail, and in the end we find we held the keys to our own prisons the whole time. This woman found this out at the end of her life, and, although I wished for her to have more time to enjoy herself,  maybe I missed the whole point.  Maybe the happiness she found at the end of her life was the culmination of a lot of suffering that eventually crystallized into wisdom. Although it would be nice to think we can have one without the other, I’m not completely sure that’s how it works. In any case, she found her peace at the end, and, in dying, left me with my own new lessons to contemplate. Am I taking responsibility for my own happiness, or have I grown complacent and cynical? Am I actually walking the walk, or am I just saying the words? These are questions we should ask ourselves again and again, and personally I’m starting today. Thank you for this one last lesson my friend.

Memories and Gratitude

“Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.”
― Paul Bowles

      Memorial Day weekend has always been a favorite of mine. Having slugged though another long Chicago winter, it marks the beginning of summer and all of the good times that come along with that. After 3 days of basking in this summer fun, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the holiday has a more serious purpose and more important meaning.

     For many, the day is a reminder to step back and acknowledge all of the service people who gave their lives fighting for their country. It reminds us that a price was paid for us to live the way we do, and that this price involved a lot of other people actually losing their lives in pursuit of this freedom. Courageous people paved the way for us, and the lives of convenience we enjoy today involved a lot of sacrifice. It’s an important idea to remember, and perhaps this idea can also serve to rekindle our sense of gratitude in an age where many of us have grown a tad entitled to the lives we live today.

     Beyond the military aspect of the holiday, I think this day also offers a wonderful chance to think about where we came from. Although they may not have been the kinds of choices that cost them their lives, our own mothers and fathers made tremendous sacrifices to give us a better life, and as children we rarely stop to acknowledge this. As the quote above attests to, it is only later in life, “when the skin sags and the heart weakens” that we begin to fully realize how our own lives are also part of a much larger story. Many of our grandparents and great-grandparents came to this country from somewhere else, and faced down tremendous fears to start a new legacy for their families, and we are the ones currently reaping the benefits of their acts of courage so many years ago. To me it’s a powerful thought, and one that makes me a lot less inclined to complain about the wide array of “first world problems” that seem to seep into my life on a daily basis. My biggest problem is losing my remote control, but somewhere in history it was a matter of literally finding food, clothing, and shelter. Kind of puts things in perspective.

     In my own life I think about my own mother working multiple jobs so her kids could one day have a life better than her own, and I am grateful. I didn’t say it a single time growing up, but now, as a doctor who has all kinds of options in my life, I realize someone else paid a price for me. It’s humbling and I am grateful. I suspect we can all think about a similar choice our parents made at one point, and I hope in these moments we can continue to choose gratitude. Parenting is like being a participant in a relay race, where you take the baton as far as you can go, based on the best information you have at the time. You hope your kids will run faster and run further, and one day their kids will run even further than that. Like I say, we’re part of a larger story.

     All of these thoughts come to mind today, because I do believe we have entered an age of entitlement, and sometimes it makes me a little sad. I know I am personally almost constantly taking things for granted, and in these moments, I try and think about where I came from and where I’m going, and what the original authors of my story would think about my whining and complaining. In these moments I often end up laughing at my own sense of self-importance, and remind myself to keep on moving the baton. Remember the sacrifices and be grateful. A simple mantra, but one I think we all could stand to repeat once in a while.

Somehow we forgot to dance

Somehow we forgot to Dance

Our lives are better left to chance

 I could have missed the pain

But I'd have had to miss the dance

Tony Arata

If you watch youtube videos long enough, eventually you find a gem. This is one of those videos. Music and life. It’s a great metaphor really. All of are involved in some kind of Opera. Some are comedies, some are tragedies, and most are somewhere in between. By the time the fat lady finally sings, most of us have seen plenty of both.

I particularly like what he says at the end. It was a musical and we forgot to dance. I think that is true of so many of us. We somehow get trapped between jumping through hoops and living up to other’s expectations of us, and all of a sudden the record is over. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it like this, “Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.”

Why is that? Are we all conditioned to continually try and unlock the next accomplishment? Having seen a number of teenagers in counseling over the years, I’ve certainly had a front row seat in witnessing this dynamic. Get on the honor roll, study for the SAT, get into college, and on and on. Smell the roses later, but for right now finish your essays.. 

The problem with this idea, is that much like Mr. Watts points out, it doesn’t end with college. Most of us will spend the rest of our lives chasing the next milestone we feel we are “supposed” to accomplish. A lot of this is about what our family and friends think about us. There’s a whole lot of research about this actually. It’s called “Social comparison theory” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_comparison_theory, and it explains a lot about how we compare ourselves to other people as a basis for our own happiness. When we have what someone above us has, then we can finally be happy. Meanwhile we continue to spin on the hamster wheel, in constant pursuit of targets that never seem to stay still. 

In reflecting on this idea, consider the words of Fr. Alfred D'Souza, “For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.” These words ring pretty true to me. As we stress about the future and lament the things from our pasts, our time in the present is melting away like one of Salvador Dali’s clocks. Many of us learn this lesson too late.

So how do we extract ourselves from this trap and learn to dance to the music? It’s really kind of a tough question. Regardless of the things we tell ourselves, none of us live in a bubble, and for better or for worse, our lives are intertwined in the same big ball of tangled knots with everyone else. Although we often admire the outlaws and the icons, we are much more comfortable when we are all playing by the same rules. It gives us a sense of order.

In my own life, I’ve come to find that to remember it is a dance, I need to remind myself to laugh. All the time. To laugh even when I really don’t feel like laughing.. To me a sense of humor is indicative of a constant choice to reframe perspective. To keep the music playing regardless of our personal little dramas that constantly threaten to scratch the record. Perspective is a difficult thing, and in my experience something that takes sustained vigilance to achieve. Our minds like to slip back into the tragedies. This is a choice, and one that we can change anytime we gather the strength to accept personal responsibility for our own happiness. Ultimately all we have is our perspective, and by accessing our humor I truly believe we can learn to dance. 

Kids, Dreams, and Encouragement

I said, that's life
And as funny as it may seem,
some people get their kicks, stompin' on a dream.
David Lee Roth – That’s Life

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”
 Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven 

Children crave encouragement like plants crave water.
Rudolph Dreikurs 


Because I spend a lot of time working with kids, I’ve picked up on a few things. Over the years, my video game skills have gotten pretty adequate. I can name a few rappers beyond MC Hammer, and I can intelligently discuss the merits of the various Spongebob characters if I was truly pressed. Does any of this actually make me cool? Probably not. Still, I think it’s important to try and meet kids where their worlds exist right now. Getting them to adapt to us is an exercise in futility.

 Beyond toys or movies or games, I have also come to understand that what kids really want, is for someone to be truly interested in their lives. Kids really do crave encouragement like plants crave water, although we as parents, teachers, and counselors may sometimes miss this. All of us that have interacted with kids at any level have at one time or another felt uncool, it’s just the nature of the beast. Sometime this stings a little, as our pride always takes a little hit when we realize that the same kids that used to look up to us, now see us as a little less than hip. We’re supposed to be the bigger person in these scenarios. It doesn’t always work like this..

 Despite these occasional hits to our own pride, I truly believe that we can never forget that kids need our encouragement more than anything, regardless of how tough or disinterested they may sometimes appear. I’ve spent plenty of time working with the future version of these kids. There really is nothing sadder than someone who fails to realize their potential because they never got the encouragement that they needed, but in some way, this is a part of all of our stories. It’s been my experience that sometimes four little words such as “I’m proud of you” can make all of the difference in the world to a person who needs to hear it. This doesn’t end in childhood either.

Perhaps even more startling, is that there are plenty of people in this world, who not only fail to give this encouragement, but actively seek to snuff out the light in other people. The song says it well, “As funny as it may seem, some people get their kicks, stomping on a dream.” Perhaps this is what happens to a number of people who failed to receive encouragement in their own lives. Hurt lingers, resentment builds, and they work to pull others down in the same way that they were. It’s a sad cycle that takes active and mindful excavation of our own pasts to consistently stand up against.

So for all of us who interact with children, as counselors, teachers, and especially parents, we have to realize that we are in fact leaving imprints on these little people that we interact with, and learn to put aside our own disappointments and remember what it is these children need from us. And perhaps, beyond the children, it’s not too late for the grown-ups in our lives to also rekindle their own dreams with a little bit of much needed encouragement. Many of us are still these same kids now in larger sizes. But we still have our dreams. Every single one of us. And without the idea of these dreams, an important part of us begins to die. So take the time to tell a kid you’re proud of them. They want to hear it very badly, and these little words can shape a child’s future in ways far beyond our comprehension.

Scar Tissue

I don't want to die without a few scars.

Chuck Palahniuk 

Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.

Henry Rollins


Had a truly enlightening conversation with a man last night who had just lost a friend of his in a motorcycle accident. He told me about how his friend had been an alcoholic for most of his life, but had been clean for five years when he died. He was killed by a drunk driver, a fact that left this man both angry and confused about God and fate and the futility of making plans, when the world seemed to him to be a series of unpredictable accidents. He was difficult to console, and while talking to him, it occurred to me that a scar was being formed that would take a long time to heal. Even as a (very off-duty) therapist, I doubted that there was much I could say to him that would help this scar heal any faster. These things take time.

And I’ve got plenty of my own scars as well. Memories come back sometimes that remind me of painful experiences, and in these moments, I think about what these things have meant to my own story. Sometimes these memories are powerful, and I wonder if I would be better off if they could be completely eradicated from my mind. The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. They are actually quite close to developing a pill for this now. Seriously..

Ultimately however, I think I’ll take a pass on this pill, even if they do finally get it right. I’ve come to understand that these experiences have shaped me in ways, both good and bad, that inform my decisions in all kinds of powerful ways, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross has this to say on the subject, “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

I think there is a tremendous amount of wisdom in these words. Although I don’t claim to be one of these “beautiful people” I do know that I became a therapist for several of the reasons that she mentions. When you’ve overcome pain in your own life, you feel a kind of calling to at least try to help others who are in some of the same emotional places. This is often exceedingly difficult, as human change is much more complex than simply sharing a story with someone. It takes patience, resilience, and most of all, simply time, and many kinds of pain can be especially resistant to change. We can become quite comfortable with the devils that we know, and yes I know this from a great deal of personal experience.

When change does happen, it occurs to me that it is akin to scar tissue that is hardening, and pain is slowly being transformed into something stronger, and in these moments a kind of wisdom is also being created. Perspective develops that allows us to see our painful experiences as part of a larger and more complex storyline. This is how we grow.

So in my own life I know that I will continue to share my own past experiences with others, while also thinking about the baggage I haven’t quite made peace with just yet. It reminds me to be patient with others, and perhaps more importantly, be patient with myself. To fully engage with this life in love and fate and moving in the direction of our dreams, is to make ourselves vulnerable to pain again and again and again. Sometimes we’re gonna get hurt. There’s just no way around it. But as we get older and wiser, we perhaps come to see that Mr. Rollins is right in the quote at the beginning of this essay, Scar tissue IS stronger than regular tissue, and we need to realize that we have survived these kinds of things before, and we will again. Any kind of life worth living is going to have some pain in it. It’s what we do after that matters.

With this in mind, I attended a wake today as a guest of the man at the beginning of the story. Not as a therapist, or really even a friend, but rather as someone who has lost some friends, felt that pain, and lived to tell the tale. I thought I was there to help him, but in the end, listening to the speeches, music, and stories, I learned at least as much as I taught.

Inspiration comes in all kinds of places..

Bill Murray, Endless Loops, & The Groundhog.

Groundhog Day. Such an odd and silly little holiday when you think about it, and one that is now synonymous with the movie starring Bill Murray, where he gets stuck repeating one endless day. When the movie came out it was considered a modest hit, but over the years something changed, and people started to look at it as perhaps a kind of masterpiece. Buddhists celebrate the film as a metaphor for many of their teachings. Prominent Catholics commented on the movie as being representative of the concept of purgatory. Beyond the commentary from these lofty places, nearly every one you speak to can relate to this movie in one way or another.

Why is that? Perhaps because at its core, the movie gives us a glimpse of someone who is truly and completely stuck, which, from my experiences as a therapist, I would guess is almost a universal feeling. Who among us hasn’t felt like we were repeating some version of the same day over and over again? A funny example of this comes in the movie “Kingpin” where Woody Harrelson’s character asks an old man drinking wine, “How is life?”

“Taking Forever” is his response.

An odd footnote to this movie is that former best buddies and collaborators Bill Murray and Harold Ramis had a parting of the ways after the movie was done filming. Murray thought the movie should have been more philosophical in nature, and Ramis thought it should be a comedy. It might seem like a small thing for two such brilliant friends to be fighting about. It wasn’t to them. They didn’t speak again for twelve years.

To me their argument speaks to the very premise of feeling stuck in this life, right to its very core. Fr. Alfred D’Souza weighs in on the side of life as the philosophical tragedy, saying, “For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin, real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

A powerful argument to be sure. Life often feels like never-ending unfinished business, where new fires begin to burn even as the old ones begin to smolder out. Perhaps Father Alfred was right. John Lennon seemed to think so as well, reminding us that “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

On the other hand..

Maybe this is really just a comedy after all. It is kind of silly to think that our own self-importance means a whole lot considering how short our little stay here is. Most of us believe this in at least some way. About other people. Our own problems we don’t find so funny. Mel Brooks said it pretty eloquently, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”

So what does all of this have to do with Groundhog Day? Perhaps the answer lies in how Murray finally breaks free from the endless loop, as it slowly dawns on him that he is never going to escape. He surrenders to his fate, while also oddly becoming a wonderful source of inspiration to his fellow captives. By directing his energy away from himself and more towards others, he begins to feel a kind of emotional freedom, despite the fact that he feels like he will be stuck forever in the same day. Why would he do this? If there is no accountability, shouldn’t we just make ourselves happy and take whatever it is we want from life? People seem to voice this opinion often, and Murray in the movie also first takes this approach. It doesn’t seem to work for him. Or for most lottery winners. They’re usually broke again in a few years.

So maybe it is really as simple as the movie makes it seem. If we all have felt stuck in our lives, and we’re all here together, then it stands to reason that we could at least help each other carry the weight of these feelings. Self-absorption as a response to feeling stuck often feels like the right way to go, when in fact it’s like spinning our tires deeper into the quicksand. When we chose to give instead of get, we often get back much more than we ever could have expected. And what we get back is not simply quid-pro-quo, but instead something much more powerful, which is freedom from the little prisons of self-obsession we build in our own minds.

And really, that’s the only kind of freedom that matters.

Walkin' in Memphis

Walkin’ in Memphis

Just pulling out of Memphis Tenessee. Had a wonderful weekend full of adventure. I got up on stage with BB King’s house band and played (flailed at) the trombone,. I stood at the very spot where James Earl Ray gunned down Martin Luther King.  I held the microphone where Johnny Cash recorded his first song. I sat and mediated at the spot where Elvis played “Unchained Melody” a couple of hours before he died. I’m not ashamed to say I cried when I stood at his grave, thinking 42 was too young for him to leave this mortal coil.

Travel is good for the soul. I’ve always known that, but sometimes in the hustle and bustle of life, I forget it. There is something about being in a strange place that challenges you to snap out of your comfort zone and start again with new people in new places. It helps you grow. I’m sure of it.

So on a whim I went to Memphis. I picked this place after reading a story about Marc Cohn, who wrote the seminal hit "‘Walkin’ in Memphis" back in 91’. Much like I did, he decided to visit this city to see Graceland and find out a little more about the King. While he was there, he had what he described as a “spiritual awakening.” Here is the story,

“Cohn wrote this song after traveling to Memphis to check out Graceland, which is Elvis Presley's mansion and a kitschy tourist destination. He made sure to see an Al Green sermon when he was there, but it was a trip out of Memphis along Highway 61 where the meaty part of his journey took place. In the desolate Delta, he saw a sign that said "Hollywood," which turned out to be the Hollywood Cafe, which is a small diner/music joint in Tunica County, Mississippi. This is where Cohn smelled the catfish and encountered a black woman in her 70’s named Murial who was at the piano. After watching Murial play a variety of spirituals and Hoagy Carmichael songs for about 90 minutes, he spoke with her when she took a break.

Cohn's mother died when he was just 2 years old, and he lost his father at age 12. He spent a lot of time reconciling his childhood, which often comes out in his songs. Speaking with Murial, he got maybe the best therapy of his life. Cohn described this conversation in his 1992 interview with Q magazine, saying: "She was real curious, she seemed to have some kind of intuition about me, and I ended up telling her about my family, my parents, how I was a musician looking for a record deal, the whole thing. Then, it must have been about two in the morning, she asks me up to sing with her and we do about an hour, me and this lady I'd never met before, playing a song I hardly knew so she's yelling the words at me. Then at the end, as the applause is rising up, she leans over and whispers in my ear, “You've got to let go of your mother, child, she didn't mean to die, she's where she's got to be and you're where you have to be, child, it's time to move on."

I was so touched to read that. I think in many ways we are all trying to reconcile things from our past, and the more we resist it, the more it comes back. Stephen King said it like this, “So do we pass the ghosts that haunt us later in our lives; they sit undramatically by the roadside like poor beggars, and we see them only from the corners of our eyes, if we see them at all. The idea that they have been waiting for us rarely crosses our minds. Yet they do wait, and when we have passed, they gather up their bundles of memory and fall in behind, treading in our footsteps and catching up, little by little. “

So I found myself in Memphis, trying to reconnect with a piece of my own past. Once upon a time I was a young kid at loose in this city. I was practically broke, in love for the first time, and dazzled and a little amazed to be in a new place. I remember at the time reading a story about a young Bruce Springsteen jumping the fence at Graceland because he wanted to show Elvis a song he had written. It always resonated with me. I aspired to be that bold.

As I walked the streets of Memphis all these years later, I heard the song “always something there to remind me” playing in my head. I remember being young and wistful, and I miss those times. But for better or for worse, I have gotten older, and in this and all other incarnations, I play the hand that is dealt. Perhaps Oscar Wilde said it best, “the soul is born old but grows young, that is the comedy of life. And the body is young but grows old. That is the tragedy of life.”

So aside from all the comedies and tragedies of my own life, I had a bit of my own spiritual awakening while I was walking the streets of Memphis. And it wasn’t because I learned something new or came to a different kind of understanding. Instead, I remembered something and someone I once was, and I realized I am still very much that same person. I came to understand that age, at it’s core, is really nothing more than a concept we conceive in our own minds We place limitations on ourselves based on what we “should” be doing, but ultimately the only person we have to account for is ourselves. Of course we try and improve ourselves along the way, but in the meantime, to find any kind of happiness, we have to find a kind of self-acceptance.

So that’s what I found in Memphis. A kind of understanding that in many ways I still am that young, brazen and hopeful young man I once was, while also being a little older and wiser as well. All of the stops on the timeline have their purpose, and shape us in ways we don’t always fully comprehend. The truth is that a life lived well is one we can come back to over and over again. To create these memories we just have to find our courage to try something new and do something different. This is why travel is so therapeutic. So farewell for now Memphis. I shall return.. Thanks for the memories.. 

Same Old Lang Syne

2012. I really couldn’t even fathom such a date when I was a kid. Yet here we are. I’ve heard a lot this week about resolutions and change and starting over, and I always wish people well when they make these promises to themselves. Change is perhaps the most mysterious force in the universe. We vigorously fight it and resist it while also craving it desperately. Either way it happens though. Everything is in a state of renewal and decay. Particularly we humans.  As R.D. Lange once said, “Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.”

It seems to me that although we all talk about embracing change, mostly what we are talking about are the changes it is that we want. It’s the other kind that terrifies us. A change that we didn’t plan for or expect often induces a much different kind of feeling.  This is the kind that makes us adapt and adjust and step out of our comfort zones and places of safety. This is the hard part. In the words of Tom Robbins, “Real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is risking one's clichés.” 

So as a therapist who bears witness on a daily basis to these struggles with change, I’ve come to a kind of a realization. Lasting changes in one’s life are not evidenced by being 20 pounds lighter, or a new gym membership, or an exciting new relationship, although all these things certainly make us feel good. For a while.. I have however found our brains have this unsettling tendency towards slippage. Slowly and insidiously we give back the gains we make, and settle back into our old selves. Anyone who doubts this should check out a gym the first week in January. It’s packed. Then come back in April. You’ll see what I mean.

The takeaway is that change is not about resolutions and promises, but rather those small, internal moments when we realize that all of the choices and externalities of our larger world stem from the little thoughts that originate in our own minds. When we’ve compiled enough evidence about what doesn’t work, and come to a place where we understand that we are the architects of our own lives, finally, we can begin to take the reins and confront our own way of thinking. This involves risking our clichés and altering our belief structure, and this is often extremely uncomfortable. Our minds become comfortably habituated to all of our personal little opinions and beliefs, and will quickly slip back into these old ways of thinking without sustained vigilance. But there’s a choice. As Victor Frankl puts it, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

So in my own life I vow to work on myself in this manner over the coming year. A wise man once told me that it was the job of the therapist to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and right now I fall l into the second category. I will not lose weight this year, but change the way I think about health, hedonism, and how my choices are all affecting my future self. I won’t just make more money, but pursue ways to be happy in my working life without tying it exclusively to financial gains. I will try and confront my own pessimism, cynicism, and fatalism. I will take more chances in love, career, and health, and when I fail, I will think about what it all has to do with my own thinking rather than blaming it on timing or laziness or someone else. I will risk my clichés..

I did rejoin a gym though.. Hope to see you there in April… 

A Weary World Rejoices

Went to Midnight Mass last night for the first time in about 20 years. I wasn’t drawn for any particular religious reason or obligation, but rather out of a sense of curiosity. Would it be the way I remembered it? Somehow I always went kicking and screaming to those kinds of things, but last night I actually went a half hour early to see the choir sing Christmas Carols. Maybe I’m getting a little sentimental in my old age.

I was particularly struck by their version of “Oh Holy Night,” which has always been one of my favorite Christmas songs. I listened carefully to the words,

‘Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.’

I think perhaps what draws me so much to the song is it emphasizes a sense of renewal and hope. Although I’m not personally as invested in the spiritual aspect of the song, as a psychologist I spend nearly all of my working day trying to cultivate a sense of hope in the people I see, with varying degrees of success. This song conveys it so simply, and I am a little jealous.

What I saw however, as I scanned the eyes of people singing along with the choir, was that this hope, however fleeting it may be, is a real thing. Although other holidays such as Easter are more associated with renewal, I think Christmas contains a lot of this quality as well. For me personally, I also wanted to feel this sense of hope. Looking back on Christmases past, I know I certainly didn’t get everything I asked for, but somehow it was all still okay. A lot of people had taken time to think about me and buy me presents and give me a bit of their attention for a day, and that was enough. My own worries could wait for another day. Christmas was about fun. Kids spend hours and hours of their energy in pursuit of the things they want, and the look on a kid’s face when their presents finally arrive is really kind of a wonderful sight to behold. Sure you can argue about commercialism and the reason for the season and all of that, but still, it’s fun to watch the kids with their toys.

I think the phrase “the weary world rejoices” applies a lot more to the parents though. You can see it in their tired eyes that they’ve spent a lot of time shopping, worrying, wrapping presents, and generally doing everything in their power to make sure their kids have a Christmas to remember. The end of the season brings a kind of relief and a sense of being finally able to let go of the rope. Right or wrong, parents have gotten through another Christmas. The weary world rejoices. Now pass the eggnog..

So I found myself at Midnight Mass wanting to borrow some of this hope and relief. Somehow in trying to dispense these things to others, I found my own battery had been drained a little. Seeing people belting out the songs and smiling and enjoying each other, I felt a little like the Grinch, down from the mountain to sing with the people in whoville. By the end of the mass I found, rather unexpectedly, that I had joined in the fray and the chaos and the handshaking, and yes, even the singing. Life is not a spectator sport. It’s a platitude I always preach to my clients, but often forget to apply to my own life. Yet here I was, mingling, socializing, IN A CHURCH…  One thing I certainly learned last night, was that I still have the capacity to surprise myself. It’s a wonderful realization.

Hope comes in many forms…

Coming Home

Thanksgiving. It’s always been one of my favorite holidays, and today, while watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles on a crowded plane, I reflected on why that is.

What is it about the idea of coming home? The beloved American songwriter Stephen Foster wrote “no matter how far we travel or what sadness the world imposes on us, all our hearts ache for the best memories of childhood, the security of a family and parents, and the familiarity of a home.” That certainly explains a lot of it, but looking back on my early life, the memories are far from perfect. Why are we so quick to forget the bad and remember the good during these moments of nostalgia?

My answer to this question came in the unlikely form of John Candy, who throughout the movie I mentioned bumbles and stumbles through his life like a wounded trooper, his heart entrenched firmly in the past while he humbly tries to negotiate the present. The current narrative of his life reads like a very messy novel with no clear path to a peaceful resolution.

But we find out there is one thing he has truly excelled at in his life. He has loved well. At one point in his journey he has truly shared his chaos with another person, and the memory of his time with his wife is enough to keep him going. It is a poignant lesson from an unlikely hero.

But that isn’t the end of the story. Through his interactions with his counterpart Steve Martin we see that perhaps, despite his chaotic life, he still has something to teach. Martin’s character is a busy man, and although he loves his wife and kids deeply, his life is in some ways passing him by. Through his constant struggle for the legal tender he has forgotten an important lesson, and somehow this all crystalizes for him in the form of an obese guardian angel that came crashing into his life, seemingly out of nowhere.

What we are left with is the idea that people all long for some kind of human connection. Even those of us who appear the “toughest” or most distant. Plato said, “Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some sort of battle” and I think this is very true. Simple moments of human connection make these battles so much more bearable.

Which brings us back to the idea of giving thanks. Thanksgiving brings us all together for a brief moment to celebrate perhaps the most important antidote to skepticism and resentment, and that is gratitude. Thinking about the things we have versus the things we don’t is an important battle in this life, and often, for one day at least, we spend a little time with the people who know us the best and figure out what it is we have. Sometimes this isn’t so apparent, and families can often be incredibly chaotic and dysfunctional.

But if you’re like me, you too may one day find yourself a long way from home and actually missing this chaos. So dust off the china and tap the boxes of wine.

I’m coming home. 

Welcome Back To The Fight

Years ago when I was a kid, I remember reading Sports Illustrated, (Crossing my fingers for a swimsuit) when I came across an article about Howard Cosell. The title of it was “I’ve won, I’ve beat them” and it talked about how Howard had risen to the top of his profession despite a number of people from all walks of life that wanted to see him fail. That phrase always stuck with me when I was a kid, and it became kind of an inspirational mantra to me when I felt like life was beating me down.

Time passed and I forgot about this comforting phrase, but a few weeks ago it came back to me. I was standing on a platform, now officially a doctor, and listening to people politely clap as I moved across the stage. Ten hard years of study and sacrifice and now I was officially a made man. I had won, I had beaten them.

But what had I won exactly? And who had I beaten? I thought back on all of those people from my life who sought to kill my dreams, or tell me I wasn’t good enough or smart enough and smiled. Far from discouraging me, those kinds of voices had provided motivation to keep on going when things were at there worst. As much as I would like to find those people and gloat for a minute, I realized they weren’t the enemy. Not really.

No what I had really beaten was the little voice in my own head, always present, judging, criticizing, telling me I didn’t deserve to live the best life that I could. Taking that voice on proved to be the toughest challenge of them all.  

 I believe we all have this kind of self-sabotaging voice in our heads from time to time, and it is often as persistent as it is relentless. This voice creates limiting beliefs which convince us to settle for a life that is good enough rather than one we truly desire. We convince ourselves that we are too old, or too far behind, or simply not good enough, when in reality these barriers exist exclusively in our minds. Breaking through these limiting beliefs requires we take a path completely different than the one we are acclimated to. When we deviate from the path eyebrows are raised and whispers begin. Who are we to go against the grain, and why are we rocking the boat?

What I’ve discovered however, is that until you confront these limiting beliefs, you are always going to play the game of “what if” with yourself, and this can destroy you.

So, having reached this point in my life, I’ve come to understand that all of my personal failings, all the tears, frustration, broken hearts, and floundering around in the dark. All of these things are now the fuel that will perhaps assist me in helping others break through their own limiting beliefs. What hadn’t occurred to me in my darkest days, was that these very moments would one day crystallize into a kind of wisdom that could be of some use to others. It’s a powerful responsibility.

All of this came into my head when I was watching Casablanca the other day and found myself fixated on the final scene, where Victor Lazlo tells Rick, who is now a completely transformed man, “Welcome back to the fight.”  I think about this idea as it relates to my own life.  At one time I was an idealist, and truly believed that the power of ideas could change the world. Somewhere along the way I’ve lost some of that, but I also believe, finally, that all of these lost ideals are starting to return. When you transform yourself you also come to realize that it’s just the beginning. There are millions of lonely and scared and tired people out there who have lost their way, just as I have, many, many times in my life. I will give them everything I can, because I’ve been there.

I look forward to returning to the fight..

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