I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are getting into the New Year. One of the common exercises we undertake at New Years is to make New Years resolutions. Many of us pledge that we will lose weight, or exercise, or save money, or whatever we see as needed towards becoming better persons. This issue of Words of Caring deals with how we choose to look at things – our perceptions. Specifically, the following two articles show some of my perceptions and those of my family, both as they very often are and as they can be.

Situations are with us all the time; in fact our lives are a constant stream of situations coming one after another after another. These happenings generally also involve other people. And how do we look at situations and the people in them? Well, if you are at all like me, situations and unfortunately people are too often seen and handled as problems. Many times with me, even when a successful resolution has been forthcoming, handling the problem has created anxiety, tension, anger and even sometimes depression. And too often better resolutions to the situation have been missed and people I love injured simply because those better resolutions were not visible while handling the situation as problem.

But I would like you to read these articles and see just how quickly the situations therein were changed from problems to challenges and even opportunities in hiding. And what was it that changed in each of these situations? Nothing at all, except the perceptions of the people in them.

There are many things we can resolve to do in 2003 to make us better people, but I would suggest that we might want to work at adjusting our perceptions of the situations and people around us. In this way not only will we ourselves become better people to others, but the people with us will begin to appear better to us and our situations will more than likely improve. And isn’t that what we all want?

Happy New Year!

-- John Borland --


Joy
By John Borland

I’m sure like all of you, there has been much going on of late in my life. The interesting thing, however, is that a lot of what has been occurring has the appearance of trouble.

The pace at work has picked up dramatically such that there is little time for me even to think and there are many difficulties with my friends and private life that appear currently to have no answer. All of these weigh on my mind and too much consume my thoughts and my energy.

But the most significant areas of difficulty for me have to do with my family. It is very hard to explain in an appropriate and unbiased fashion what has been happening. Suffice it to say that my boys, Troy and Joshua, are growing up and are, probably more quickly than I can deal with, becoming their own persons. And Judy and I are entering areas of our relationship that are creating, at least for me, new awarenesses into each of us despite thirteen years of being together.

Without a doubt it is hard to let go of children and the trials with watching them grow into adulthood and away from your influence and control are difficult. As much as these times are a hardship for our kids they can also be a challenge and a learning experience for us parents. And what can I say of my spouse and I? As Father John Mack relates, marriage is a mystery, and some days it is more mysterious than others.

As I say, these are the situations that have come into our household, or at least into my mind, of late and much of it wants to appear to me as trouble. I have thought very hard about what is happening and about what to do in the face of these seemingly conflicting personal and family dynamics.

There have been times that I have been overwrought and emotionally drained. There have been times that I have been thoroughly perplexed and confused for what to do and for what is being asked of me. And there have been times I have been carried away by the situations and taken out of good sense and best action. I know my family members in differing ways share these feelings.

I must honestly admit that in all of this I have very often chosen to feel pain and tears and sadness. There has been sometimes the power of my indignation at being wronged and there have been even more times the deep pangs of personal guilt for myself being wrong.

At times I have said, what next? At times I have said, when will it end? At times I have felt so dark and separated. At times I have wanted only to quit. At times I have wanted to pack it up and just run away.

But, of late and with great difficulty, in the throes of ebb and flow, I am coming to slowly see something else.

I am questioning to myself why is it that all I can see is trouble? What is there here that I have not, with many heartfelt requests, asked to be given to me?

I remember years back to the dark times of deep isolation, brooding and never ending depression. In those days all I wanted was to join with others and come in from the cold of being so alone. And here it is now around me, the human, social world with all of its energy, demands, confusion and conflict.

I remember when I had few friends and no one with whom to be intimate. All I begged for was a partner to share my life and to give to me something alive and real to be a part of. And now my wife is with me, an indivisible part of the mysterious union we share, but also a distinct, individual and different person.

And I remember the pain of seeing children from a distance and wishing so much for a family of my own with children that I could example to and teach and lead. And now I have two strong and vital boys, growing and ever changing, alive and going forward steadily in the upbringing Judy and I are providing them.

There is for me a growing warmth in my musing on these events, for in all of this I have been given exactly what I requested, but not at all what I expected.

And why should I get what I expect? What gain or growth would there be in such a formula?

For if I have asked for there to be peace in my life, how will I ever have peace unless I can find it in the midst of storm and difficulty?

And if I long for patience and greater endurance how will it come to me unless I have something against which to be patient and to endure?

And if I want to come to the best answers, why shouldn’t I have many frontiers on which to explore which answers are best?

And if I seek to be better than I have been, what better way than to have countless challenging opportunities by which to become better?

And, if I wish only to find love in my life, what more can I ask than for situations where to love in spite of it all is the only possible answer?

This is probably most true with my family, for if life – as I believe – is truly learned through the discipline of struggle it is with them that I am learning the most.

I watch Judy so busy with our daily routine and her kids at daycare. I watch Troy flying rapidly towards independence and his own life. I watch Joshua so animated and wrapped up with sports and play. They are often stubborn and contrary and disagreeable and conflicting. And I am the worst of all with my heavy analysis, constant oratory and insatiable striving for perfection.

I marvel at how strange our family seems at times, and yet we are a family. We are a family filled with needs and desires, events and schedules, opinions and arguments, energy and confusion. But we are also a family filled with milestones and celebrations, hopes and dreams, caring and concern, aid and support.

This family of mine isn’t at all what I would have expected, but in all of my straining to know what is unknowable and to feel what is untouchable and to see what is invisible what better family could I ask for?

For though it is so often hard by what I expect to know it, or feel it or see it, my family is strangely filled with love. And through them I have been filled more than I could ever have asked for.

And this for me is joy.


Expectations
By John Borland

Let me relate a short story that happened not very long ago. Our Halloween parade here in Hershey was postponed for a week because of bad weather. My son, Joshua, asked my wife and I after dinner that night if we would take him.

A small dilemma thereupon ensued. Judy did not feel like attending having worked all day. I, on the other hand, felt up to it, but still as yet do not have a good way to sit through long events such as parades because of my hip surgery. We kept thinking about options whereby I could stay in the car, but still be close enough to the parade to watch Josh.

Finally, having decided to try a place we knew of near the parade’s staging area, Josh and I set off in my car. When we got to the location we found fire police blocking the entrance. Rather than go home we resolved to find another spot. We hunted about and at 6:30 PM pulled into a side street within fifty feet of the parade route and just a short distance from the staging area. The parade was scheduled to begin at 7:00.

Our information told us that we should be one of the first spots along the parade route. We parked immediately behind the fire policeman’s pickup truck. At approximately 6:45 the fire police barricaded our side street to traffic. We found, however, that the barricade was placed behind my car at the first cross street.

We were effectively trapped inside the parade route. Though I wondered about this neither Josh nor I minded much since I had a good view and Josh could run to the corner to watch the parade and grab candy. It was curious though that so few people were located at our prime spot and those who did come through didn’t stay.

Well, 7:00 came and went and no parade showed up. We waited patiently and discussed possible reasons for the delay. After a time we heard fire sirens and band music to the side and behind us. It slowly became apparent that our information was only partially correct. We were on the parade route all right, but the parade, this year, was running in the opposite direction. Rather than being the first ones to see the parade, we would be last.

At this point Josh’s happy, hopeful mood evaporated into sobs and upset. His concern centered on two points: one, that we would have to wait so long that we would never get home (there was still a Philadelphia Flyers hockey game back there to be listened to), and two, that, by the time they got to us, the marchers would be all out of candy.

Josh got fidgety in the extreme and wanted only to leave. All I could do was to explain again how we were prisoners of the barricade and attempt to calm him down.

I quietly reminded Josh about the virtues of patience and taking life and situations as they come, but even I was pretty certain that our trip to the parade this year was going to be a bust.

Finally at 7:50 PM the flashing light of the first fire engine came into view from our street. We felt better and Josh ran for his perch on the corner. Then my heart sank again as traffic control began diverting the fire vehicles down another street away from our spot. Oh no, I thought. Another lesson shot in the…

To my relief, only the fire trucks were rerouted. The rest of the parade came straight on through our corner and right past my beaming son. But Joshua’s real joy came when the marchers not only threw candy, but actually walked over and handed it to him.

As usual, most of the parade goers had congregated on the main portion of the route along Chocolate Avenue. Only a very few local residents, and of them about eight children, were left with us. With little peer-based competition and with parade participants eager to get rid of their remaining goodies before ending their march, Josh was a target for candy, toys and all sorts of other left over, kid-type paraphernalia.

Josh could simply walk up to vehicles and floats to receive with open arms. And even the older folks with Joshua, who had little use for such things, handed my boy a cornucopia of edible and other treasures that they collected.

At the end Josh, his bag loaded, exclaimed that this was the best parade he had ever been to.

As for getting home, instead of twisting and snaking over back streets as in other years, we were directed quickly onto the now empty parade route. We flew down Chocolate Avenue, largely devoid of traffic, and hit all the lights green save one. We arrived at our front door only two minutes later than our timing in past years.

Expectations. Oh how they color the way in which we see the world.

While the above story is rather a classic in terms of the expectation versus the reality, think of how many times the influence of our expectations is more subtle and the difference in the outcome less clear.

I need only look at my family members to recognize vividly how may times I have anxiously driven situations to particular ends in line with my expectations of how things must be.

And how negatively powerful I can become and how very right I can feel in pursuit of those expectations. Indignation, forcefulness and even full out anger can feel very correct to me when I perceive the loss or the threat associated with a result other than my own. But how bad I can feel later, after I have acted, when I can finally see the actuality of the situation more clearly.

Look at your own lives and answer for yourself how true this is.

Those of us who are religious are asked to have faith and trust for outcomes that we cannot fully perceive, and we struggle to do this. But let me even put this issue of expectation on a more universal and practical basis.

Learning and growth is largely the result of our stepping into experiences with situations, activities and challenges we do not now know such that the unknown slowly becomes known. After all:

Who of us knew that we could swim before we dared to plunge into the water beyond our depth?

Who really thought that we could drive a car before we took our first halting spin around a back parking lot?

Who of us really believed that we would find our spouses and fall in love before we made that fateful date?

And who of us even dreamt of what it truly would be like as a parent before we had children of our own?

Were we afraid of the unknown? Sure we were. But those of us who have done these and the many other things we humans do now know them and are even rather comfortable with them; things that were unknown to us before we did them.

But, ask yourself, how can we as individuals expect to learn and to grow fully from our experiences if the only experiences we will accept are the ones we already know? What outcomes might we have had if we would only have allowed a situation to become what it could be instead of what we made it to be? And whom might we now be if we had allowed ourselves to become more within that unknown situation?

How many experiences have we missed out on by following our expectations and what might we have gained?

Joshua and I talked much of the parade that night and we both understood the lessons. But admittedly we have also both continued since to drive at our expectations in spite of the teaching that was given us.

We are not perfect, either of us. But also we both now know that there is much that we might come to gain if only we can dare a little to let go of what we expect.


A PEG Meeting is Planned
For those of you who might have been wondering we are indeed planning for a meeting of the Parent Exploratory Group (PEG) in January. The meeting is scheduled tentatively for Tuesday, January 28 from 6:30pm to 8:00pm in the Dauphin County Technical School auditorium. We will confirm this meeting and provide further details via e-mail and on the Affective Skills Web Site. It has been a little while now since PEG has met and so we hope to see you there to renew old acquaintances and perhaps make some new ones. -- John Borland --
 

YOU MAKE THE DIFFERENCE IN WHAT WE CAN DO TOGETHER!

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Last Modified: December 13, 2003