When Loneliness Comes

A friend’s emotional pain and loneliness

When Loneliness Comes

My friend Rob Blanchard sat across from me with tears welling up in his eyes.  The sad loneliness written on his face were almost too much for me to bear.  It was as if I could feel every molecule making up his person screaming for relief.

“My wife has left me.”  He almost whispered.  “My best friend came and he just swept her away!  Now I don’t know what to do.  I feel so lost and lonely.  I didn’t know such pain existed!”

His words spoke directly to my heart by way of empathy.  I was feeling things I hadn’t felt for many years, not since the emptiness created by the divorce of my parents.  I recognized his agony and lonely feelings.  They transported me back and my once-experienced desperation exploded into the present.  Yet, I was relieved, with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude to be sharing with him right then.

My empathy somehow created a different meaning for my pain.  It gave it an emerging usefulness just discovered.  I now knew that my own heartache and its associated discoveries could be used for good.  For the first time, the hard-earned discoveries of my youth would make a larger difference.  I could share them for Rob’s benefit.  Perhaps they can benefit you as well?

First, pain doesn’t require loneliness.  When many people are emotionally injured they withdraw into themselves.  Unfortunately, when this choice is made, the cure becomes obscure and often lost forever.  It can lead to unrelenting feelings of isolation.

Second, such feelings of isolation from seclusion are the enemy of healing.  When I say enemy, I mean just that.  It leads one to begin to believe that everyone is their enemy.  It is insidious in its assault on the human soul.  At the very least, it leads to a deepening, perpetual loneliness.

Third, deep loneliness can cause even the strongest amongst us to shed core values in exchange for personal acceptance in a quest for false happiness.  “He’s not really that way.” “I can see the good in her.”  “I can change him.”  Loneliness has the ability to create the most severe blindness possible.  Perhaps that’s the genesis of the common phrase, “The blind leading the blind.”  And, it has nothing to do with the ability to see through one’s physical eyes!

Fourth, ironically, seeing through our physical eyes can lead to the cure for loneliness.  When you and I open our eyes and see that there are countless others in need of our love, it can open new connections into multiple hearts.  All it takes is a desire to see past the pain inside oneself.

Fifth, others will love you because you loved them first.  My friend Rob Blanchard sat across from me with tears welling up in his eyes.  The sad loneliness written on his face was almost too much for us to bear.  It was as every molecule, making up his person, was screaming for relief.  So, I gave him the relief all of us need, by sharing what has worked for me over and over again. 

“Lose yourself by serving others.” I almost whispered.  “You can become the best friend of many if you’ll just allow caring service to sweep you away!  Look for and begin to see opportunities to serve others.  Then, you’ll know what to do.  Seek those that feel lost and lonely.  Share your love with others, looking forward to the day of forgetting.  The day they forget their pain ever existed!”

Great News!

“Don’t think solely about what happened; think as well about what did not happen, and thereby is unseen.” – Frederic Bastiat

Great News!

Have you ever heard of what economists call “opportunity -cost”? Opportunity cost refers to a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action.  Stated differently, an opportunity cost represents an alternative given up when a decision is made.  For example, if you have money and decide to invest it in a stock in hopes of generating a return.  A second option may be to reinvest the money back into your business with the expectation that newer equipment will increase production efficiency, leading to lower operational expenses and a higher profit margin.  If you assume that the expected return on investment in the stock market is twelve percent, and the equipment update is expected to generate a ten percent return. The opportunity cost of choosing the equipment over the stock market is twelve percent minus ten percent, or two percent.  And, there are are other types of opportunity costs and opportunities which are unrelated to money and its return.

Stop for a moment and think of all you have feared would happen.  Or, what have “the experts” said would happen.  Now. Can you think of anything that was “sure to happen” that never happened?  For example, you’ve most likely heard about how deforestation is occurring on global scale and how it is wreaking havoc on our environment.  And, did you know that the Appalachian Forest in the United States is in the best condition it has been since the eighteenth century?  Today, the Appalachian Forest covers the most acreage since Europeans first saw North America, despite the huge boom in population on the East Coast.

Jesse Ausubel, director of the Human Environment Program at Rockefeller University in New York City says, that by 2050 global forests could continue to expand by ten percent.  That’s about seven-hundred-fifty million acres, an area as large as India returned to natural condition during the same period of time as during the largest population boom in world history.  But, my point is not about the earth’s environment here. It is about mental environment.  Have you, like I, missed this great news?

Upon learning this news, I asked myself, what other great news I have been missing? And, a follow-on self-examination question could be based on the philosopher, Frederic Bastiat’s statement, “Don’t think solely about what happened; think as well about what did not happen, and thereby is unseen.”  How much better could my mental environment be if I would start to pay attention to didn’t happen, what is not seen.  In other words, what are the problems I don’t have?

Have you ever heard of opportunity cost? Opportunity cost refers to a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action.  Stated differently, an opportunity cost represents an alternative given up when a decision is made.  How can you and I benefit if we think alternatively?

What if we took a different course of action and began to notice all the bad things that have never happened.  What if we focused on great news?  What if we began to see the good we've been missing?

Making Optimism Your Style

The world around us

Making Optimism Your Style

I was an intern in Senator Jake Garn’s office in 1981.  That’s where I first saw and used a fax machine.  I viewed it as a miracle!  We’d use a typewriter, type the message we wanted to distribute, attach it to a drum on the fax machine and then hit send.  Moments later, the distinct sound of a telephone modem would signal a connection and I’d watch the drum spin for almost ten minutes as it transferred data to its intended location in far off Utah.

Now, here I sit, in the far-off future from 1981 and marvel at the life you and I live today.  It’s a life that, people just under forty years ago, would have viewed as impossible.  And, for some reason, we are in a time, living a life, that often seems impossible for us to recognize as amazing by any historic standard.  The food we eat is just one incredible example of such thoughtlessness.

Until the development of long-distance transportation, farming was a local business.  Now, we walk through grocery stores and pantries alike to purchase and consume fresh fruits and vegetables grown, in season, on the other side of the planet for our consumption in the dead of winter.  And, this food has fed more than bodies alone.  It has created new businesses in parts of our world that were previously “undeveloped.” As a result, by 2015, the United Nations reported global malnutrition had declined to the “the lowest level in history.”

Here are other optimistic facts Gregg Easterbrook unveiled to me recently.  Disease rates are in “long-term decline” and longevity is the highest ever.  “US industrial output is at an “all-time record.”  Inflation has been “low for a decade” and mortgage, and other borrowing costs are at “historic lows.”  And crime?  Yes. Crime, “especially homicide,” is in long-term decline as well.  These are all facts that have largely gone unreported in both social and news media.  So, it’s easy to feel as if our way of life will soon end and to have continuous negative feelings.  It has even become popular to be negative, so when I began feeling optimistic over such positive facts, I thought I’d better ask my friend James Grimm, a seasoned expert, questions to see if I was off in some way.

Jim is a retired Chief Financial Officer of more than two global companies, so when we were working together this week, I asked, “Have you been surprised with how quickly our economy has rebounded from 9.11 and the economic crash of 2008?”

He responded with, “Yes!  It just goes to show how resilient we are as a people, not just in the United States, but across the world.  We’re accomplishing things we never dreamed as possible!  Life is getting better and better.”

His response made me feel much better as it also runs against conventional wisdom.  Perhaps it’s because optimism has simply gone out of style?  But, there is no need for you and I to let optimism disappear from our lives!

I was an intern in Senator Jake Garn’s office in 1981.  That’s where I first saw and used a fax machine.  I viewed it as a miracle!  We’d use a typewriter, type the message we wanted to distribute, attach it to a drum on the fax machine and then hit send.  Moments later, the distinct sound of a telephone modem would signal a connection and I’d watch the drum spin for almost ten minutes as it transferred data to its intended location in far off Utah.

As you read this, in 1981’s far off future, on your computer, a freshly printed paper, or on a pad, stop for one moment and let the miraculous mechanism you’re reading it on signal optimism to your brain.  Then say, “I live in a far off intended future where miracles occur in every moment of every beautiful day!”

The Copycat Trap

“It’s really important to understand what differentiates you, because that’s the only key to your success.” - Denise Warren

The Copycat Trap

We all have other people we admire.  When looking at the thousands of people we come into contact with it’s easy to see a lot to appreciate.  And, one recent experience showed me that in some ways all of us are born copycats. 

I was sitting on the couch, while visiting my daughter and her family, when I looked over to see my one-year old grandson doing exactly what I was doing.  He was carefully watching my every move and then doing his best to imitate.  We all thought it to be very cute.  But, at the same time, I thought, “I hope he doesn’t become too quick to copy me in every way!”

It’s natural for all of us to see someone we admire and then try to copy their path thinking that they’ve discovered the secret for a more successful life.  But, the challenges and opportunities each one of us face individually are very different than those of any other person so we ultimately discover the need to find our own answers.

My grandson’s proclivity to mimic my actions was sobering to say the least.  He allowed me to discover the Copycat Trap and face two of its truths.  First, I’m not a model of perfection!  Second, should he be caught in the trap, his many beautiful, unique attributes could become easily and tragically lost.  So, how can we benefit from the good we admire in others while also recognizing and embracing our individual, unique gifts as well?

Denise Warren described such personal opportunity when she said, “It’s really important to understand what differentiates you, because that’s the only key to your success.” 

How can each one of us can best discover our personal opportunities?  Start on your pathway to new found success by asking yourself two questions.  What makes me different from everyone else?  How do I use these differences to get what I want? Asking these two questions will force you to think about who you really are and what you really want.  They force you to think about your uniqueness, as an advantage, and will push you away from becoming nothing more than a mimic.

I was sitting on my daughter’s couch thinking of how cute it was for my grandson to be coping my behavior.  Then I thought, I hope he doesn’t copy everything I do!  Finally, I realized that the best way to avoid the copycat trap was simple.  You and I can be more than a mimic by avoiding the Copycat Trap.  Let’s figure out what makes us unique and what we want to go after!