Making Sense of the World and Compassion

It has been a very eventful week. I have had 4 papers due this week, all together 32 pages that my poor senioritus stricken mind has had to produce, and a lot of other homework on top of that. this is not what I am going to be talking about in this post: I want to talk about compassion. It might be specific to certain situations, but then again maybe not. So here it goes.
You know when you are talking to someone and they believe something that makes no sense? It seems like insanity to believe it, but they hold tighter and tighter to this belief no matter the logic and evidence you present. It may even contradict some of their own beliefs but they ignore (or struggle with) the cognitive dissonance. They become defensive and you become frustrated at their inability to see the light. A good metaphor for this idea is when a person has been wandering in the dark with a glow stick and you offer them a flashlight. They refuse to use the flashlight when the glow stick has kept them safe for this long. It doesn't make any sense right?
I saw this happen to a girl in my class this week. She was making a comparison between alcoholism and depression claiming that a depressed person, like the alcoholic, is addicted to depression when they first indulge their sadness. I just want to say for the record that I do not agree with her.
There was another girl in the class who took great offense to this and took advantage of the classroom setting to vent her anger. She shared with the class that she had struggled with major depression, had been very close to committing suicide, and was upset to have her problems compared with alcoholism.
The second girl publicly confronted the first girl and cruelly ripped her apart. The first girl apologized but the second girl relentlessly perused her revenge. The first girl started sobbing loudly, continuing her apologies, but the second girl continued her verbal assault until she was satisfied. By the way, the professor did nothing to stop this all from happening. I found this first girl after class and talked to her about what had just happened. This girl had a mother who had major depression while she was a child and was not available for her. She resented her mother for not being there for her and viewed depression in an . . . odd way. It was how she made sense of the world where her mother was not there for her. Sometimes there are things that have happened that never stop hurting. They often decrease in potency and frequency, but they come back out of the blue and it takes time to wrestle them back. This brings me back to the glow sticks.
Though it does not makes sense to use a glow stick in place of a flashlight, it is all that they know. They have fought hard to attain the little light that they have and the prospect of changing is devastating. When you take away the way a person makes sense of the world, the world no longer makes sense. It is easy to say that you are giving them a better way and if they were smart the world just take the stupid flashlight already, but it's not that easy. If you have ever tried to break a bad habit like overeating or swearing, you know that it is a difficult process that takes effort to change. It's second nature to drop the F-bomb when your car doesn't start and to head for the cookies when you have to spend another Saturday night alone. Changing the way you think is harder, especially when there are strong emotions tied to those beliefs. You have taken the only light source they have ever known and now they are standing in the dark holding something they have no idea how to operate or understand.
Though things may seem simple to you there are people who have never had the opportunities you have had and those people deserve patience and most certainly our compassion. Just because you have a flashlight does not make you the master of the darkness or better than the person with the glow-stick. Always remember that there are things that may not be apparent to you either and you would want someone to be kind to you if/ when they point them out to you. You may have a flashlight, but God knows where the light switch is.      

My Random Ideas on Love

Last night was rough. There is a strong positive correlation between between my stress level and the approaching finals week of this last semester. I have the usual overwhelming amount of assignments due and not enough time to do them. Also I have had the wonderful combinations of familial discord and disappointment in a loved one to compound this stress. I finally had one of my famous Liz stress breakdowns last night. To say the least: I was a sobbing hot mess. My poor husband sat there and did his best to comfort me but the only thing that was going to make it stop was to just get it out. When I was finally able to calm down my husband took me in his arms and just held me. Then something so cute happened. If any of you reading this blog really knows Jason, you will know that he isn't the most poetic or eloquent, but he knows his stats lingo. He started telling me in statistical terms how much he loved me. He used standard deviations to tell me how above the mean his love for me was and many other things that my mere 1040 stats class did not allow me to comprehend. The thing that I did understand was that he loved me. He was able to talk about it for minutes and minutes in an eloquence any actuary would be proud of.
This made me think about how we all talk about and display love for one another. Only a few are able to display the popular ways of communicating love: the rich buy extravagant gifts and take loved ones to dinners, the poets write poems, musicians play and sing, and others borrow from an assortment of these. While they are all good things to do, they have become a little trite and impersonal. Like the different people in relationships, love should be shown in different and unique ways. It doesn't matter if it's unusual just so long as the one you love understands you. True love is understanding and being understood. I am not saying that you must perfectly understand the one you love, that is impossible. What is important is that there is an active effort being made. I know that was  random tangent but seriously guys, don't be afraid of putting a little bit of you into showing someone that you love them. 

A Little on Love

Hey everyone,

Last night I laid in bed with my mind restless and full of ideas, making sleep an impossibility. I usually welcome ideas, just not at one o' clock in the morning. My mind was centered on one thing that everyone seems to be obsessing over in our culture: love. As a woman who was once a hormonal teenager, I have been caught up in the drama of pining after someone that I claimed to "love." Love is extremely complicated as most people know, and cannot be easily defined. I tried to come up with a definition for myself, but decided to cop out last night and just ask my husband Jason about it. I wish I could remember exactly what he said, but it basically came down to this, "Love means wanting to help and protect someone from harm. It means that your souls have a connection and that you would do anything for them that is good." He said it in a much more eloquent manner than I just did; so well in fact that I admit I am surprised.

 To this definition I add that love means doing what is best for someone even if they become angry of upset with you for doing it. I also add the remarks of a professor of mine. He read in the work of a general authority, whose name escapes me, that there are two different kinds of love: sentiment and real love. Sentiment claims love but does not actually practice love. Sentimental love is the mother who lets her children beat up other children at school, denies the child is capable of doing it, and allows the same child indulgences which are ultimately harmful. Sentiment is selfishness disguised as love. Sentiment says, 

"I am too tired/proud to give you what you need so I will do what is easiest for me or makes everyone think I love you when really, I love myself. 

Real love on the other hand is the mother who actually engages in parenting, gives out fair punishments, most likely will have to deal with tedious tantrums, and teaches a child to be a good person rather than a selfish one. Real love says,

"I love you enough to let you know that what your doing is wrong and you need to stop. I will be here to help you as best I can but you cannot treat me or others this way. I want you to be truly happy and successful, not momentary entertained. Even though I am frustrated with you, I will not spitefully hurt you but do what is best for you." 
Also I do not agree with the famous quote from the 1970's hit Love Story when it claims, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." What? What kind of nonsense is this? I often make mistakes and saying sorry to those I love and care about is needed in order to communicate with them that I regret my words or actions. I believe saying you are sorry shows love and concern for one who may feel slighted or hurt. Silly 1970's hippies!

From thinking over the definitions above I realized a few things:

1) There are people who claim to love me but who do not love me at all.

2) There are people who never claimed to love me, but who show me love constantly.

3) 1 makes me sad.

4) 3 makes me feel blessed.

5) I need to become more a more loving person.

Not the most eloquent summary, my apologies. The world around us most definitely does not teach us to love. We learn that in order to be the best it takes destroying the competition or losing ourselves in our work/ school/ fitness that we do not have time to truly love others. We separate ourselves into different groups in order to distinguish how we may be better or superior to others. We do not know how to work for each other anymore, we definitely know how to work for ourselves though. Despite the selfishness and greed, I also see that there are still good people who really do practice loving each other. I see in in people in my ward, in my community, in my family, and always in my husband Jason. He is so kind and so good; though I am sure he will just blush and get embarrassed if I say that.  

WARNING I AM ABOUT TO GET A LITTLE SAPPY: When I was growing up, I was convinced that love was stupid and it was better to have a career than a marriage. I saw how my family tore itself apart and I have watched my parents hate each other for most of my life. I do not talk about these things to try and get sympathy or attention, but to let you know how very much I value my marriage. It is nothing like what my parents had, and everything I could ever wish for. We are honest to goodness happy. I have someone I can talk to about anything, who listens, and who will not use what I tell him to hurt me. He also lets me know when I might have done something wrong allowing me to see from a different perspective. It' so awesome! Okay sappiness over.

I am completely convinced that, "what the world needs now is love sweet love." Hopefully I can learn with the world to be a little more loving, when it is not natural, and loving others is difficult. As previously mentioned, I am LDS and so I find the teachings of my church helpful in helping me to cultivate a loving attitude towards others even if I fail sometimes. In Moroni 7: 45-48 I find perhaps the best definition of love described and the best means of obtaining it given: 

45 And ^acharity suffereth long, and is ^bkind, and ^cenvieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily ^dprovoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

 46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—

 47 But ^acharity is the pure ^blove of Christ, and it endureth ^cforever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

 48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, ^apray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true ^bfollowers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall ^cbe like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be ^dpurified even as he is pure. Amen.

Hoping you are all well,

Liz

New blog, and a little blurb about the Silver Lingings Playbook

Hey there guys,
I am starting this blog because I accidentally deleted my old one when I got rid of my old email address (thanks again to the hacker in Ukraine for making that necessary). Thinking back on my old blog, I think I tried way too hard to be cool and didn't put enough of myself in there. I expressed only the "deeper thoughts" that I thought would be the most impressive. I realized this was stupid. What is the point of trying to be impressive? The people who read this stuff are most likely the people who know me fairly well. These people well enough to know that if I become an exalted celestial being, (I am LDS) I want to make unicorns real and some make people magic. Hogwarts can be real!!! Seriously, not the deepest stuff. So I am going to to try and just write informally about the normal parts of my life, things I find interesting, and if there is incidental depth, I assure you it is not premeditated.

So with that preamble I would like to talk about the 'Silver Linings Playbook'. I Checked it out from the local library and devoured it this last weekend. I had previously seen an edited copy of the movie that just came out, and I have to say the book is obviously the superior version of the two. I won't go into the details of the book to avoid spoiling it for anyone interested in perusing it for themselves. I will simply say that Mathew Quick does an amazing job in creating deeply flawed, depressed, and disturbed characters. If you are easily offended by vulgar language, frightened by descriptions of hallucinations, or disturbed by mental illness in general: this book is not for you. As a psych major, I was riveted by the getting a look into the minds people with mental illnesses that, despite all of my study, I will never fully understand.

I was moved by the way the main character Pat tried so had to find the silver linings in the dysfunctional world in which he lives, even to the point delusional dysfunction. Though Pat's positivity was unrealistic and had a slightly damaging effect on his social life, his hope was encouraging and even beautiful. Something that one must understand about the mentally ill is that despite the problems that they have that may sometimes seem frightening or confusing, there is this odd beauty about them. They can see and appreciate things and people that "normal" people take for granted. They have to try so hard sometimes to get out of bed and make it trough the day that their triumphs and successes truly merit the deepest meanings of those words. I feel like the world gets so hung up on words like bipolar, depression, or unstable that they cannot see past them and lose the opportunity to get to know thee people. As I read Pat's journal I saw the beauty mixed in with his problems, and came to admire his dedication to improving himself and his life.

WARNING SMALL SPOILER: Perhaps my favorite part of the book is when Pat is talking to his therapist about Silvia Plath's 'The Bell Jar.' Pat, the eternal optimist, becomes very upset by the fact that there is no silver lining to this book. He rants to his therapist that this is a horrible book and that making anyone, especially children, read it is cruel and promoting pessimism. His therapist explains that it is important to make children read books like that to prepare them for the real world, and to teach them compassion for those whose lives are worse than their own. I and my siblings have often discussed the horribly depressing nature the books that were assigned to us in our public school years with similar dislike. I personally hated Earnest Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea' when I was forced to read it in high school and I am still not compelled to reread it. The explanation given by Mathew Quick in this book makes me think back on the depressing novels of my middle school and high school years so differently. To learn compassion is to become truly enlightened. Perhaps public schools are teaching something useful after all.

Well that ended up being much longer than I had intended it to be. I hope you enjoyed my random thoughts on this awesome book. Have a great day.