Tag Archives: metaphor

We are all in the same lifeboat

A few days ago I wrote about the state of limbo we are in, dealing with the coronavirus. I said,

My thoughts: If everything goes well, it could be September before we get close to vaccinating enough of the population to truly ease up on our personal restrictions. More likely, we are looking at January 2022. That’s another year away. I think things will get much better, but the path will be slower than everyone wants.

However I made an assumption that I’m starting to question. More and more I’m realizing that there are going to be too many ‘free riders‘, too many people not taking the vaccine. Too many people believing that the vaccine will cause more issues than the virus. Too many that think the virus isn’t serous enough in their age bracket. Too many people that misunderstand what a vaccine is and what it does.

Without enough of a herd immunity, the virus will continue to spread in a way that means our lifestyle pre-pandemic are not likely to return for years. Virus mutations can and will spread, and each mutation has the potential to spread more easily and/or mutate enough to make vaccines less effective.

It’s like we are all in the same lifeboat and it has tiny little holes in it. Vaccinated people plug the holes, non-vaccinated people don’t think the holes are a serious enough problem. These free riders aren’t doing their job plugging the holes in the boat. And because of that, the boat keeps getting wetter.

I’m shocked every time I hear someone say that they won’t get vaccinated. I know there are ‘anti-Vaxers’ who link vaccines to false claims and negative propaganda, but I can’t say I’ve met or know too many people I’d put in this category. What I am seeing is vaccine hesitant people who think that vaccines for Covid-19 are unreliable, or not significantly tested, or even dangerous. It is this group that scares me. The crackpot anti-vaxer community is a fringe group, too large for my liking but not larger enough to endanger heard immunity from happening… however the vaccine hesitant group is way bigger than I thought, and this group will undermine the ability to reach herd immunity; to keep our lifeboat dry enough not to be concerned.

Only a few days ago I was feeling like I was being pessimistic saying the earliest rerun to ‘normal’ was January 2022, but now I’m thinking that’s terribly optimistic. We could be stuck in this leaky lifeboat for a very long time.

The secret to happiness

It always seems to be one or the other, (read the parable below). This truly is the secret to happiness. I read The Alchemist a half a life ago, but this parable has never really left my thoughts. I’m going to listen to the audio version again this year, in fact, I have an Audible credit and think I’ll get it after posting this.

Also, if you read the parable below and want to read the book, I’ll buy it for the first 3 people that contact me. It will be my pleasure to share this book with you.

The two drops of oil

By Paulo Coelho

A merchant sent his son to learn the Secret of Happiness from the wisest of men. The young man wandered through the desert for forty days until he reached a beautiful castle at the top of a mountain. There lived the sage that the young man was looking for.

However, instead of finding a holy man, our hero entered a room and saw a great deal of activity; merchants coming and going, people chatting in the corners, a small orchestra playing sweet melodies, and there was a table laden with the most delectable dishes of that part of the world.

The wise man talked to everybody, and the young man had to wait for two hours until it was time for his audience.

The Sage listened attentively to the reason for the boy’s visit, but told him that at that moment he did not have the time to explain to him the Secret of Happiness.

He suggested that the young man take a stroll around his palace and come back in two hours’ time.

“However, I want to ask you a favor,” he added, handling the boy a teaspoon, in which he poured two drops of oil. “While you walk, carry this spoon and don’t let the oil spill.”

The young man began to climb up and down the palace staircases, always keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. At the end of two hours he returned to the presence of the wise man.

“So,” asked the sage, “did you see the Persian tapestries hanging in my dining room? Did you see the garden that the Master of Gardeners took ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”

Embarrassed, the young man confessed that he had seen nothing. His only concern was not to spill the drops of oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.

“So, go back and see the wonders of my world,” said the wise man. “You can’t trust a man if you don’t know his house.”

Now more at ease, the young man took the spoon and strolled again through the palace, this time paying attention to all the works of art that hung from the ceiling and walls.
He saw the gardens, the mountains all around the palace, the delicacy of the flowers, the taste with which each work of art was placed in its niche. Returning to the sage, he reported in detail all that he had seen.

“But where are the two drops of oil that I entrusted to you?” asked the sage.

Looking down at the spoon, the young man realized that he had spilled the oil.

“Well, that is the only advice I have to give you,” said the sage of sages.
“The Secret of Happiness lies in looking at all the wonders of the world and never forgetting the two drops of oil in the spoon.”
~ from the book “The Alchemist”

The way

“What stands in the way becomes the way.” ~Marcus Arelious

Sometimes a quote like this can just grab and take hold of you.

What’s in the way of you feeling good about yourself? Is it your weight, well then that becomes your focus and you don’t feel good without knowing if this measurement is going in the right direction… fast enough. But no matter how fast, you aren’t ‘there’ yet… there’s more to do… more work, more sacrifice, more time, before you can be happy.

What’s in the way of feeling accomplished? What are you too busy to get to? What do you need to do first? How do these things that get in the way become the way? How do you go for days forgetting what it is that makes your work enjoyable? Tasks become your day… ‘To Do’ lists fill your calendar, and what you really want to accomplish doesn’t get done.

When you focus on the things in the way, those become your focus. How much of our lives are spent with our attention on the things right in front of us, and not on the things we value or think are important to us?

How do we look beyond what’s in our way and truly find our way?

Charge your batteries

I went for a walk this morning. Met two friends and we had a social distance walk. We chatted about work to the halfway point then I instituted a push-up rule on the way back: first person to talk shop does 5, next one 10… etc. One buddy did 5, I did 10, and we talked about family and favourite movies and series the rest of the time. First face to face connection with anyone outside my family in weeks.

Came home and showered and went for another walk with my wife. Just did my meditation and cleared my mind some more.

Beyond that I had more than 5hrs sleep last night for the first time in a week, as it seems my insomnia is lifting. Even with the lack of sleep through the last week, Friday at work was incredibly productive. I haven’t had a day with so many things checked off my ‘to do’ list in months.

And now I’m m listening to one of my new favourite songs on repeat, created by one of our students at Inquiry Hub. I find that a single song on repeat helps me write. Usually I pick one without lyrics, but this one works for me.

Even though I missed my workouts Wednesday and Friday from shear exhaustion from insomnia, I still made my 5-a-week minimum. And, I can feel that my period of maintenance is ending and I’m ready for another push. I’m a year and a half behind my goal to do a one-minute unsupported handstand… maybe that’s my goal again after finally feeling fully recovered from a shoulder injury.

Traditionally this weekend is a wipeout. I’m exhausted and the Christmas break can’t come fast enough. I already have at least 55 hours of work scheduled next week with after school meetings booked, and I can’t think too much about the break because it is still far away. So I won’t think about that.

Instead I’ll think about my batteries feeling charged. I’ll do a chore I had put off until the holidays, and get that out of the way now. I’ll write some more… and hopefully sleep for a solid 7 hours tonight. Despite feeling fully charged, I’m going to keep myself metaphorically plugged in, while I feel the power surging in.

Stop pig wrestling

Like my Papa used to say, “Never wrestle a pig, you both get dirty but the big likes it.”

I’ve shared that quote before and also said, ‘Bad ideas get unwarranted publicity when the battles get messy… and the weak-minded get fuel to oppose good ideas when those with the good ideas act in bad faith. You do not have to ‘turn the other cheek’ but you do have to act in a way that is decent and good, if you want to fight for things that are decent and good.‘

Recently, across many social media platforms, I’ve seen people using the strategy of sharing hurtful, mean, and ignorant comments from internet trolls, and doing one of two things: 1. Calling out the person for being mean (or essentially saying ‘ouch’ or ‘look at this idiot’). Or, 2. Sharing it to launch an attack.

While I get why, and understand that sharing like this can garner sympathy, or feel like a way to vindicate yourself, or attack the attacker… this is a bad idea! It’s pig wrestling.

These people aren’t worth your time. They don’t deserve you, or those who follow you on these platforms, as an audience. Don’t surrender your time and energy to them. They. Aren’t. Worth. It!

Delete the comment, block the idiot.

Let me say that again: You get a rude/mean/nasty comment on a social media post, so what do you do?

1. DELETE 2. BLOCK.

… and move on. They don’t deserve your time; they don’t deserve your attention; they don’t deserve your mental energy. So why give it to them? Why allow them more time in your thoughts than they deserve?

They are pigs. Don’t let them get you dirty just because they like to get dirty. And hey, I get that it’s hard to turn the other cheek sometimes, and if they threaten you in some way, then sure, take it seriously. But most internet trolls are playing a game, they are purposefully trying to engage and enrage you. To steal your time and attention, and to hurt your feelings. The act of mud wrestling with these losers helps them win.

You want to strike back at these mean people making mean comments? Diffuse their energy by not giving them any of yours: Delete. Block. And move on to spend time and energy on people that are better than them.

——–

Addendum: I’m not suggesting you delete and block people just because they disagree with you, this is only about comments with malice intent. We don’t learn from them but we can learn from people who disagree with us.

——–

I wrote this a decade ago:

I remember watching The Razor’s Edge years ago. Bill Murray plays Larry Darrell a taxi driver ‘in search of himself’ who at one point serves as an ambulance driver in World War II. His partner/co-attendant Piedmont is a sour man that is bitter and unpleasant.

If memory serves me correctly there are also two wonderfully optimistic, volunteer, British ambulance drivers that work with Larry and Piedmont. In a scene, these two happy-go-lucky ambulance attendants have engine trouble as they attempt to bring injured soldiers to safety while under fire. Stalled, the Brits attempt to repair their ambulance while enemy fire pinpoints their stationary location. Bombs get closer and closer until they blow up the ambulance, killing these two men. Larry is distraught and the bitter Piedmont says a few kind words about how nice these two were and then says, to Larry’s disgust, “They will be forgotten.”

Later, Piedmont is killed (I don’t remember how), and in a monologue Larry talks of this unruly, unkind and cantankerous man and then says, “He will be remembered.”

I was still a teenager when I saw this movie but it has a powerful lasting affect on me. I realized then and there that we tend to pay far more attention to people and things that are negative and annoy us than on the things we should be happy and appreciative about. I’d like to think that this is learned and not human nature. We don’t have to focus on the negative, and we are better people when we don’t.

Stretching my back and my mind

Stretching my body has always been a chore. I find the discomfort of stretching tight muscles painful rather than uncomfortable. But I need to do it. I was 4’11 at the end of Grade 9, and grew to 5’6½” at the end of Grade 10. That growth spurt included a torque in my back that left me with mild scoliosis and back issues that persist to this day. Add hamstrings that are tighter than a piano wire and I’m a walking corpse with rigor mortis set in, when I don’t take the time to stretch.

But I hate the feeling of stretching.

My challenge now is to stretch my mind before my body. I need to re-evaluate how I think about stretching. I need it to be part of my routine, rather than feeling like an add-on that I don’t want to do.

Both stretching my mind and my body in this area feels unnatural. Just saying that tells you I’m failing at stretching my mind. I realize there is a knowing and doing gap here, but telling myself this doesn’t seem to help.

I wonder what mental roadblocks other people have that are similar? Is there something you do that you know is bad for you, or don’t do and know that you should? Where do you need to stretch?

And if you made that stretch… what’s your secret?

How safe would you want everyone to be?

It’s raining heavily and you are driving home. Windshield wipers are going as quickly as they can giving you the best view you can get given the weather conditions. You see car headlights heading your way and before you know it you are in a head on collision. Set aside who’s fault it is for a moment, just know your front bumper hit their front bumper, with both cars travelling at 65km/hr (40mph).

Cars today are designed to take a lot of the impact of a crash away from the people inside them. The front end of the car will buckle in front of the passenger cabin, and take the worst of the impact. That said, two things will help ensure greater safety for the drivers and passengers. First, there are seatbelts, and then there are airbags. But despite safety precautions, an impact like this could easily be fatal.

In this scenario, how safe would you want everyone to be? Would you like to know that both you and the person in the other car both had their seatbelt on, and that the airbags were present and deployed as expected?

Wouldn’t you want to know that you both did the best you could to protect yourselves?

Well, for all you anti-maskers out there, here is a simple analogy:

Poor weather = Pandemic, less than ideal conditions.

Car safety measures = Hospitals

Airbags = social distancing, protective distance between you and danger.

Seatbelt = Mask, personal protection.

The difference between a seatbelt and a mask is that your personal protection of a seatbelt in a car protects you, while a mask protects those in the community around you.

No one plans to get into a serious car accident, but they happen. When they do, the safety precautions you’ve taken might not be the same for the person or people in the other car. No one plans to spread a virus that might inconvenience some people, and kill others. No one wants an elderly family member or friend to die unnecessarily from something that could have been prevented, by something as simple as wearing a seatbelt or wearing a mask.

Don’t be an idiot. Buckle up. Mask up. Do it for your family, for those you love, and for those in the community that you live in. It’s your community. Do you want to be a good community member who shows that you care for those that are less fortunate than you? Or do you want to be thought of as reckless and stubborn? What kind of neighbour do you want to be?

Red pill - Blue pill quote - David Truss

Red pill, blue pill

The Terms Red Pill and Blue Pill refer to a choice between revealing an unpleasant truth, represented by the red pill, or to remain in blissful ignorance, represented by the blue pill. These terms are in reference to the 1999 film The Matrix. ~ Wikipedia

We are living in a red pill/blue pill moment, except people are colour blind and everyone thinks they are taking the red pill.

I’d rather be a sheep than a lemming

Dear anti-masker,

Go ahead and call me sheeple. You might think of me as easily influenced or docile. You might think I’m willing to give up my rights to follow the crowd. Sheep find comfort in community, and the herd helps others to be safe, not just themselves… kinda like masks do.

At least I’m not lemming, running off a dangerous cliff because others are doing the same. I’m not willing to endanger others with my choice of behaviour.

Now in reality lemmings aren’t really suicidal, and people thinking about their community doesn’t make them sheeple. In fact, most communal animals are very community minded and they do their part to keep their community safe.

It pains me to see something like this happening in Toronto. This isn’t community minded, it isn’t considerate of others. It’s metaphorical lemmings, except they aren’t just jumping off the edge, they are pulling the weakest and most vulnerable along with them.

The best they can with what they’ve got.

I’m sure if I go looking, I’d find a similar post I’ve written before, but this idea is worth exploring (again) and it was inspired by Aaron Davis’ comment on yesterday’s Daily Ink.

I don’t remember where I first heard this, but it was decades ago, before I became an educator: “People do the best they can with the resources they have.”

This is such an empowering position to hold when dealing with an upset person. They are trying, they are doing their best, they are hurting and need compassion. This shifts the direction of the conversation, especially when your own buttons are pushed by the person or when they are showing their upset by going on the attack.

If you go into a conversation with an upset person believing they are only there to attack you, that leaves you only with a choice of being defensive or going on the attack yourself. If you go into the same conversation thinking this person is upset and doing the best they can, suddenly you can shift to helping them, even when their strategy isn’t ideal.

This isn’t always easy. Here is an example from a while back at another school: Student does something very inappropriate. Parents are invited in. Parent has heard the student’s ‘creative’ perspective on how they are not at fault. Parent comes in with metaphorical ‘guns-a-blazing’ to defend the kid.

Whether it’s a father or mother that comes in, I call this ‘mama bear’ behavior. Mama bears will do anything to protect their cubs. So, what’s the worst thing that you can do with an angry mama bear? Attack the cub in front of them.

The easy, but unhelpful reaction to hearing a parent defend a kid, who has fabricated a story to the parent about the innocence of their behaviour, is to call the kid out. The harder thing to do is to remember that the kid is scared and doing the best they can, and the parent is angry and doing the best they can. A counterpoint at this juncture can easily lead to an unhealthy argument. So, a softer approach is better.

It’s a matter of remembering that we want the same thing… to take care of a student who has in our eyes done wrong and in the parents eyes has been wronged. And so that parent is doing the best they can with the knowledge and resources they have.

This doesn’t mean that you let the kid off. It does mean that you can take an approach that is more aikido than karate, more deflective and less of a direct attack.

Without going into specifics, I talk about how more than one kid was involved in the situation. I talk about how intentions aren’t always known and that two people can see the same situation in different ways. I ask the parent to remember that the other kid has a parent too, and might ask what they would think of the situation if they were the parent of the other child (this is delicate and not something to do early on, only when the parent is less angry than when they came in to defend their cub).

It’s only when the parent can see another perspective that I then discuss their kid, and the approach is that ‘we both want the same thing’. Without saying it bluntly, the approach is asking ‘Do you want your kid acting this way?’ or more subtly, ‘Do you want your kid being perceived they way they are being perceived?’

In essence, it’s about giving the parent more information and resources than they arrived with, to deal with the situation better than an angry mama bear has defending a cub from danger. It’s about saying, ‘Your kid made a bad choice’, and separating their behaviour from their identity and the parent’s identity too. And then it’s about helping both of them get the strategies and resources they need to make the situation better.

It’s not easy. But when a mama bear sees that you want what’s best for their kid… and that’s really what you want even though the kid made a really bad choice… then the outcome becomes what you intended it to be. That same mama bear parent has, at times, even wanted to go harder on their kid than I do. If it comes to this point, they are still operating under the same pretence, they are doing the best they can with what they’ve got.