Archive for the ‘kindness’ Tag
The assignment for our Writing Group here at the Waters of Excelsior on Friday, June 13, 2025 was to applaud someone. The following was what I presented in honor of a resident whom I chose to leave unnamed, but who represents so much that is good in what seems like a tragedy. Today I was in the process of filing it away when I thought you might enjoy the message. So, here it is.
I APPLAUD YOU.
goodness,At least every half hour.
You ask what day this is.
And in between you.
Inquire about the time.
Then you ask when they will be.
Playing the game you enjoy,
The one you will engage in.
With full understanding.
When it begins.
When nothing else is going on.
You read your book.
I don’t know if it’s the.
Same book over and over.
Like the stories of your life.
family, husband and occupation.
And always you are the first.
To clear the table to make space.
For the newcomer.
Or help place the wheelchaired person.
Comfortably at the table.
And fetch a glass of water.
For the person who wants it.
Even as you pick up what the.
Person with the walker has dropped.
You’re always there to open the door
When you think I want to come in.
I applaud you for all this.
What really matters.
The essence of who you really are.
Goodness, generosity, kindness.
Mona
I am a Democrat and I really want to help, but I can’t afford to waste my money on ineffective commercials and interviews. For some reason that I do understand, (but don’t like), no one wants to hear my psychologist’s eye view. But here goes anyway
Reason Number One: People want to see strength in their leaders, and we in the US live in a society that equates strength with masculinity. So electing a masculine person to office is a no-brainer. And Masculinity, for fairly obvious reasons, is equated with maleness. Therefore females still don’t qualify in our culture. Besides we have a long history of thinking in terms of opposites, especially opposite sexes. So, the assumption goes, if men are strong, then by definition women are weak. So women are out because they are seen as the “opposite” sex, i.e. weak as opposed to strong. Moreover, our frontier culture tends to think of strength in terms of physical ability so the support of violence in language and actuality feels good. And the elderly are out because, quite literally, aging does reduce physical strength.
To tell the truth, I think it would be fun to sit with some Ad men and turn some of that information around to appeal to folks who want to see good stuff get done.
Reason Number Two: There is another strong side to the US culture. We see it in the daily stories of people rushing to the aid of their neighbors. Physical strength is good, but so is the strength of shared community, kindness, gratitude, forgiveness, and peace. I waited during the whole campaign to see stories of real people suffering or enjoying victories. Instead I got numbers and generalizations. I’m not a political scientist or politician, but I do know about jargon and I often find it boring. In this election the opposition did a great job of using plain, ordinary language and applying it to things folks care about in their personal lives. But what I saw in Democratic commercials were jargoned intellectual arguments – boring (and effeminate?). How about stories of effects on real people, like women suffering the agony of pregnancy denied the aid that health workers are not allowed to give, or mothers trying to find an apartment they can afford with the two jobs they hold down while raising three kids, or the joy in a child’s eyes when being recognized for something they did well, or the grief in losing one’s home to flood or fire. It’s an old rule in creative writing, “Show, don’t tell.” Make me see what it looks like when people in poverty suffer expensive illness because they’ve been denied regular preventive care. Tell me the stories of the people and families seeking shelter on our borders. Give me a reason to see the very real strength in seeing the positive that can be done. Don’t just leave me with the opposition’s lies told with confidence – no ifs, ands, or buts — denigrating other people. Most folks don’t really get excited by explanation of the process of scientific method or polling procedures. Show me.
Oh my gosh. Do I really dare publish this? I guess so … I can’t just sit around and watch tragedies happen.
I consulted with a few friends about the appropriateness of publishing my Holiday letter, and we all agreed — I’m old enough to get away with it. I don’t have to worry about my resume, and I think my reputation is sufficiently solid. I know this contains no pornography or even indecent language. So I should be good to go. Enjoy! Or not, as the spirit moves you.
MONA’S LETTER
As I write this it’s 3:55 p.m. here at The Waters of Excelsior in Minnesota and night is about to fall. Have you noticed that, at this time of year, it really does fall? In a few minutes I’ll turn on my Christmas lights ready to greet me when I get back from walking the halls for a half hour. (I have to keep my phone happy by completing its red circle. I don’t know how my phone knows what I need to do, but it says I should, so I will.) Anyway, to get to the point. I’m beginning to receive Holiday greetings from kind and timely friends, so I guess it’s time for me to roll my own news off the presses. And yes, I do have a bit of news.
Activities: I’ve been involved in the establishment of a Resident Council here. It seems that our first order of business has been to examine and encourage improvement in the way newcomers are welcomed. I think you know I’m an oldster here, in more ways than one, having moved in at the very beginning — December, 2018. By now we’re basically fully occupied with a waiting list of those who want to join us. I continue to find it a wonderful way to live, like being on a perpetual cruise without the potential for rough waters. I also enjoy the weekly meeting of our poetry/writer’s group here, expected to produce something to share every Friday. Most Thursdays I’m also in attendance at the Bible Study group currently led by Pastor (and musician) Mark Abelson from Mount Calvary Lutheran Church. Not always, though, because when son Doug is around there are many days when I’m off to various conflicting entertainments: The Guthrie Theater, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Cantus, The Bach Society concerts, and probably other things that are slipping past awareness right now. Oh yes, I should mention that I’m enjoying being the Correspondent for the Connecticut College for Women class of 1951. I didn’t like finding no news about us in the college magazine, as if we were gone and forgotten, so I volunteered. You do have to move pretty far into the back of the section to find us, though. I’m involved, too, in establishing a writer’s group at the Southshore community Center.
Travel: August saw son Douglas and me spending fourteen days cruising with Viking’s Octantis down the Great Lakes. It’s the same expedition ship we were on last year in the Antarctic. The difference from typical cruises is exemplified by the chemistry-classroom-like auditorium with lectures and documentaries on the broad screen up front instead of a performance theater. I don’t get to gamble, but I do satisfy my brainiac self while enjoying a cappuccino without having to pass a test at the end. While Doug takes advantage of every off-ship excursion he can fit in, I’m happy to stay on board most of the time. But I did enjoy the visit to the Ford Museum in Detroit. Wow! Those presidential limos are much longer than they seem when they appear in the news. And I enjoyed sitting in the seat that Rosa Parks had occupied on the bus when she refused to move to the back. Next year we’ll be anticipating a 2026 cruise to the Arctic on the Octantis’s sister ship, the Polaris. But, if all goes as planned, before that, in August, we’ll be cruising Viking up the Mississippi from New Orleans to Saint Paul, assuming there’ll be enough water in the river. Finally, I should mention that I did not renew my license to practice at the end of May, but, based on my academic and writing credentials, I am still available for tutoring and consulting.
Writing: Closest to my heart is working on a manuscript, intended to be a book if I can make it through the search for a publisher. Its initial title was On My Way Out, the personal story of my career in psychology with lots of tales of events along the way as the years and psychology changed. For example, My conditioned response reaction to Vaugh Monroe’s Blue Moon at the romantic high school after-prom party. But I changed the title to A Healthy Woman Was a Crazy Person when I realized how contemporary the ending was as men are now dealing with their “problem that has no name” in reaction to the success of the women’s movement. I’m available to share more info about that – eager, actually.
Summary: To tell the truth, I’m glad I’m on my way out. I’m so grateful for all the blessings I’ve received along the way, but I’m in no rush to close the door behind me. There’s just too much left to accomplish and enjoy. I have no doubt we’re entering a period of historically significant and probably startling change. I hope for all of us that what lies ahead will come to reflect the message of love we celebrate in this season displayed in the growth of kindness, gratitude, generosity, forgiveness, justice, and peace. In the meantime I’ll try to do my best.
Mona
My manuscript/memoir, A Healthy Woman Was a Crazy Person: A Psychologist’s Personal Journey, led me to a conclusion I hadn’t anticipated when I started writing. Remember how the recent decades of the quite successful women’s movement began with an exploration of “The problem that has no name?” Now many young men are facing their “problem that has no name.” as their previous primary relative position has fallen. The financial aspect is strikingly illustrated in the October 26, 2024 “New York Times,” article, They used to be ahead in the American Economy, Now they’re fallen behind, by Emily Badger, Robert Gebeloff, & Aatash Bhatic,
I have no doubt that relative deprivation contributed to the results of our recent election. I also know that we Americans tend to think in terms of “opposites” with the belief that “If one group is up, the other must be down.” I’ll stick my neck out and say I suspect that way of thinking has played a large part in the current movement to ban abortion just as it has in the various “isms” that separate us. But those role restrictions don’t have to prevail and trap anyone, no matter what their gender, in social prisons that deprive one of fulness of life.
I know, too, that while it isn’t making the headlines, there is major concern and research going on into the positive influences of generosity, gratitude, kindness, forgiveness, and related routes to happiness. Even local TV programming seems to make a point of at least one kindness story before signing off. To tell the truth, I think those are the strengths that will ultimately overcome the unhappiness, disappointment, and dissatisfaction so many of us are feeling.
Okay, so I’m talking like a Social Psychologist. Of course I am, That’s who I am! Glad of it, and aware that what we have to offer is powerful when heard.
I think I’m including the graphic illustration from the article to which I’ve been referring. That red line tells us something very important about where we need to go as a people. On the other hand the magic of the Internet might erase it from this document before it posts on my blog. If that happens, please Google the original article.
The latest thing in “explaining” mass shootings is to focus on the shooter’s mental health. All good and well. Why wouldn’t this Psychologist be happy to know people’s mental health is gaining in focus and purpose?
But this Social Psychologist doesn’t like the way it’s being used to avoid the more basic horror – the cultural grounding in which poor mental health is being fostered. What sensible, alive, and aware person doesn’t carry a substratum ache of empathy, concern, and fear in this world of cruelty, killing, and destruction. It almost seems like a mark of emotional health to be disturbed. No, I don’t like the implication that the cause lies in an individual’s deviation from the norm. On the contrary, the cause lies in the culture that fosters the human potential for evil.
Will we ever get around to looking at the painful, destructive inequities in childcare, education, financial status, health care, gender acceptance, respect, and expectations for individual accomplishment (not necessarily measured by financial wealth)? What did I leave out?
It could be done. We could create a culture based on encouraging personal growth, self-confidence, gratitude, appreciation, cognitive competence, kindness, personal value – dare I say love? But that would require reducing the “blame the other” emphasis implied in the focus on individual mental health and looking instead at our own responsibility as part of a culture. As it is, I’m afraid we have adopted “mental health” as a way to avoid looking at our own selves.
Please notice, I haven’t used the words “mental illness.” That’s a related but different story.
I avoided writing here for a while for a couple of reasons. First, I’ve been happily busy and second, because I like to keep my entries simple, and life – mine anyway – has become complex. Yes, really, complex though simple.
First off, I haven’t been away from home here at the Waters since March 8 – sequestered with all the residents to protect against COVID-19, basically confined to my lovely first floor apartment. Meals delivered, Zoom activities provided, trash and recycling removed from outside my door, walks around the patio that surrounds my home on the southeast corner. Watching the plantings green up and blossom. I’ve missed out on the planned cruise with Doug to Kiev and area, lots of theater and concerts, and planned family activities. FUNNY HOW THINGS HAPPEN!. I am happy as a clam with the opportunity to finish the editing of My Father’s House in cooperation with Susan Thurston Hamerski working for Calumet publishers And too the almost finalizing of It sucks! I wanted to live (tentative title) by Nick Spooner. Basically the collection of his Facebook entries from the time of his glial blastoma (or two) diagnosis until his death. I never would have had the time if I’d been on my planned schedule.
On our recent cruise to Japan we noticed that just about everyone was comfortably wearing a face mask. Male or female, walking, driving, scootering, motorcycling, bicycling, dressed with black suits or attractive dresses, carrying briefcases, or more casual in doing daily chores. On a previous Asia Pacific cruise we had concluded the masks were to protect against the intense smog. More recently the smog had largely lifted but the masks remained. FUNNY HOW THINGS HAPPEN! I talked constantly about the opportunity for someone to produce designer masks. Just take a look around now.
When I was teaching the psychology of women at Southern Connecticut State University back in the 1970’s we used to imagine a future where people could work from home making possible the combination of career with parenting. FUNNY HOW THINGS HAPPEN!.
These days I shed tears a lot. FUNNY HOW THINGS HAPPEN!. The tears don’t come when I’m sad. No, when I’m touched by folks caring for others in heroic ways or just plain cooperation and kindness, as in wearing a face mask and keeping distance, or singing and applauding from the balconies. I’m touched by the virtual celebration of high school and college 2020 grads. This morning I watched the distance celebration of the Connecticut College class of 2020. Yesterday with some time left over I worked at organizing my photographs, encountering Connecticut College friends from our early days to the many years of gatherings at Cape Cod. And family from birth to now. I am overwhelmed with the sense of love and friendship and being part of history. I know that what’s going on currently is as big as – maybe even bigger than – the industrial revolution. The tears reflect my hope, I think, that we will emerge with a commitment to cleaner skies, fairer education and living standards, Just plain more love.
FUNNY HOW THINGS HAPPEN!. I don’t cry when mean things make me sad. Maybe it’s hard to be mad and sad at the same time. The contrasts! Oh the contrasts between my comfort and the terrible misery of so many others. It’s been a long time since I gave up my childlike belief in Hell, but about a week ago it struck me that even if I feared hell I should fear no more, because we’re here now. If I believed in reincarnation, I’d be worried that I’d suffer in my next life to make up for all the happiness I have now.
And sometimes, like my father many years before me, I’m glad I’m living the end of my journey.
FUNNY HOW THINGS HAPPEN!. With all that, I can’t help waking each day with gratitude – and chest expanding love for my family and friends. And the opportunity to feel safe about being up front here with all of you.
See what I mean? This is too long.
Every day I plan to share a bit of an update, and every day gets away from me. I try to get in a lot of sleeping, but sleep is a scarce commodity in rehab. As fast as I doze off, someone else is here to collect me for occupational or physical therapy. I do enjoy the working out, though, and I can see improvement every day. If only it weren’t for this brace that must be worn whenever I’m in an upright position. Actually, It’s not bad while I’m up. It’s the helplessness of lying on my back in bed at night, unable to get up should nature call.
But I wanted to tell you of the nice things that happen. First there are the wonderful folks who go shopping in my closet for things to wear, picking up my mail on the way, and watering my plants. Oh, really, there’s no way to list all the lovely things people have done and the kind torrent of well wishers.
My daughter surprised me by being here from Colorado on Mother’s Day, and I had a great outing with her and my son — brunch at Baccio followed by the matinee at the Guthrie – a super production of “The Crucible.” Tired when I got back to rehab, but well worth it.
If I’d been better about keeping up this report there would be more tales of kindness. Take, for example, my friend who has decided to send me some published jokes every day. Just too many thoughtful gifts to list them all
But one thing I want to be sure to report is the kindness of the fireman who supported my neck and kept me occupied while they worked on getting me out of the car. He actually spent time on saving my earrings. I have an inexpensive pair of little diamond earrings – tiny, not easy for big fireman’s hands. “Do I just pull it out?” he asked. “No, you need to pull out the piece in the back too.” He did, and put them into his plastic glove. Then he went to work on the very slim chain I chose to wear that day – one from my high school days with one pearl drop. In those days the clasps were very, very tiny, but he worked and worked and managed to open and remove it. I am so happy to have that chain, and so grateful to him for saving it. I wish I knew his name so I could thank him for that loving touch, so meaningful at that time.
I feel that I’m just loaded with stories of the beautiful things people have done for me. I hope to share more as time goes on.
But now I’m ready for a nap.
Another blogger just posted this. It’s a moving story, illustrative of the gift of kindness. We humans are capable of great love and generosity.
It puts me in mind of the many needs here at home and throughout the world where people suffer poverty, illness, fear, and hopelessness. We are so good at overlooking massive needs. They seem just too big to handle. What can I do? But when it comes down to the individual, our hearts won’t let us avoid helping.
For the many other bloggers, and people everywhere, who, like me, are sick at heart over the suffering in our world, it seems that one key is letting ourselves see these things as happening to individual people. How would I feel if I knew personally the folks in those shoes — or bare feet? I’ve just been reading “The Tipping Point.” When will we as a society reach the tipping point where enough of us are concerned that we’ll feel our power to help our world — the people in it — the environment we live in?
How soon will it happen that we will overcome inertia, perceived helplessness, and denial to do the wonderful things of which we are potentially capable.
monagustafsonaffinito 