How to Be a Human Being: Chapter 5: The Problem with Problems

How to Be a Human Being: Chapter 5: The Problem with Problems

You meet a lot of people who tell you that their lives are not going well, or that their lives are unfair, because they have to deal with a lot of problems. This is a very strange thing to say because without problems, you would not have a life. There is no such thing as a life without problems.

People who complain about their problems have concocted a cartoon life in their heads, a cartoon life that bears no resemblance to the real world. From the moment you are born, you will need to take care of things that pop up, simple things, complex things, irritations and dangers. You will need to feed yourself, get rest, get exercise and find a way to pay for the things that will keep you alive. If you don't do these things, you will stop being alive. Dealing with problems is another way of saying that you are alive. Cemeteries are filled with people without problems.

How does it get into people's minds that they will go through months of life where every relationship is perfectly smooth, where money flows into their lives without effort, where every mechanical device they use will keep working perfectly, where they already know everything they need to know? Where people walk up to them and desire to be their friend even though they are not willing to work for that friendship? Where people give them compliments, honors and trophies even though they didn't do any work to earn them? Where attractive people crave their body for sex even though they excel in complaining that real life is unlike life in their heads?

You know the kind of person who is much more enjoyable than people who complain about their problems? People who work hard to figure out their problems. Especially people who work extremely hard to be extremely good at what they do. If you adopt this mindset, you might find yourself thinking: Why wouldn't I always work really hard at everything I do? Some might see "accomplishments" as problems because accomplishments aways require work, but that mindset is dysfunctional, so please beware. That attitude will keep you locked up in a mental prison where you will continually work on developing new ways to complain that being alive requires work. What kind of parent would you be if you saw your relationship with your children as one filled with problems rather than delightful moments where Life is going on?

Perhaps the people who complain that life is a series of problems have a hidden agenda. Perhaps they think that other people should serve them, should be their servants for free. I suppose some of them might get lucky and find someone willing to enter into codependency with them, but that is not a shining example of human flourishing.

My advice is to work hard to accomplish the things that are important to you and to always do it joyously, remembering that it is a great privilege to be alive. It can be a joyous Zen experience even to do the dishes or to brush one's teeth. Simple ordinary things are magic if you only pause to appreciate them.

As the Stoics wrote, "The Obstacle is the Way." When you work hard to get accomplish the things that matter to you, those accomplishments will mean more to you. You will develop good character as you get better and better at working hard to achieve your goals. Your hard work will make you feel self-actualized and more able to help yourself and help others.

I used to get frustrated by the tedious parts of my job. I wanted to do only the fun and glamorous parts of my job. One day I realized that my own attitude was dysfunctional, so I drew a bigger circle around the things that constitute my job. Doing my job means doing all the things necessary to achieve my goals, the glamorous things and the "tedious" things. Doing the tedious things is the only way to get to do glamorous things. These things are all along the same path. This change in attitude has made a world of difference for me.

Nowadays, I don't HAVE to do tedious and boring things. I GET to do those things. I get to be a healthy and vibrant human being who treasures my job, which invites me to engage in real-life problem-solving in order to achieve awesome real-life goals. To complain that my job is nothing but problems would be terrible way to live. I substitute the word "challenges" instead of "problems," and working hard then becomes a bit of a game too. I enjoy knocking off those items on my to-do list as I work my way toward what will hopefully be a good day.

If I didn't have job problems, I wouldn't have a job. If I didn't have life-problems, I wouldn't have a life.

In conclusion, I sincerely wish the following for you: I hope you have lots of problems for the rest of your life.

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New Julian Assange Mashup Video Features Rachel Maddow Agreeing with Tucker Carlson re Julian Assange

When Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson passionately agree on a topic, it's time to stop and take notice. I despise the U.S. government's prosecution of Julian Assange. He has exposed marmongers and war criminals who remain free (many of them are even celebrated in the "news"). Matt Orfalea has compiled a mashup of concurring opinions across the political spectrum. Does the rule of law mean anything to Joe Biden? He could stop this insanity in an instant. The fact that he won't (and that Trump didn't) leads to a very dark place, the story of the great power of non-elected government officials and the power of the exorbitantly monetized U.S. spy state.

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Dream of the Return – Pat Metheny Group

In addition to all the scary things going on in the world, there are a lot of amazing and beautiful things going on in each of our lives, if only we stop to appreciate them. In honor of those many awesome things I offer this "hymn" to celebrate the end of this day, "Dream of the Return," by the Pat Metheny Group.

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About Doing the Next Right Thing.

"Do the Next Right Thing" is a phrase that has often focused me.  Where did this phrase originate?  The Marginalian explains that on December 15, 1933, Carl Jung responded to a woman who had asked his guidance on how to live. Jung wrote:

Dear Frau V.,

Your questions are unanswerable because you want to know how one ought to live. One lives as one can. There is no single, definite way for the individual which is prescribed for him or would be the proper one. If that’s what you want you had best join the Catholic Church, where they tell you what’s what. Moreover this way fits in with the average way of mankind in general. But if you want to go your individual way, it is the way you make for yourself, which is never prescribed, which you do not know in advance, and which simply comes into being of itself when you put one foot in front of the other. If you always do the next thing that needs to be done, you will go most safely and sure-footedly along the path prescribed by your unconscious. Then it is naturally no help at all to speculate about how you ought to live. And then you know, too, that you cannot know it, but quietly do the next and most necessary thing. So long as you think you don’t yet know what this is, you still have too much money to spend in useless speculation. But if you do with conviction the next and most necessary thing, you are always doing something meaningful and intended by fate. With kind regards and wishes,

Yours sincerely,

C.G. Jung

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The Story Behind the Iconic Photo of the Man Who Refused to Salute Hitler

I've seen this iconic photo periodically. It has always inspired me. I keep a copy of the image file on my desktop, and I periodically look at it and feel intense emotions.  Until today, however, I didn't know the story about the man refusing to salute Hitler.  I didn't know what happened to him.

[caption id="attachment_34346" align="aligncenter" width="792"] Employees of the shipyard Blohm und Vow from Hamburg gathered for the launch of the training ship 'Horst Wessel' and demonstrate the Nazi salute with the raised right arm. One worker in the right half of the picture denied it and crosses his arms in a defiant gesture - also a kind of resistance. The name of the worker is August Landmesser., 01.01.1936-31.12.1936[/caption]

Here is the opening paragraph of the story behind the photo from Wikipedia:

August Landmesser ([ˈaʊ̯ɡʊst ˈlantˌmɛsɐ]; 24 May 1910 – 17 October 1944) was a worker at the Blohm+Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. He became known as the possible identity of a man appearing in a 1936 photograph, conspicuously refusing to perform the Nazi salute with the other workers.[2][3] Landmesser had run afoul of the Nazi Party over his unlawful relationship with Irma Eckler, a Jewish woman. Later he was imprisoned, and eventually drafted into penal military service, where he was killed in action.

The Wikipedia article continues on and it is a story that is jarring, inexcusable, horrid. This is what can happen when bullies bring terror up a group (or nation) of people, causing them to form a destructive tribe.  There are millions of stories of the Nazi regime, but August's photo allows him to visually inspire the rest of us.  If only most of us had the guts and integrity to stand up to 1% of the social pressure and the danger that he faced. I wonder whether this photo was used in the case against him, or if his sin of falling in love with a Jewish woman (Irma) was more than enough evidence for his persecutors. Bullies don't need much evidence.  Actually, they don't need any evidence.

August's non-salute proves that one can stand up to massive social pressure to succumb.  The salutes of everyone else in this photo is evidence of something else, what what?  Is it that most people are sheep?  Is it that most people stop thinking when under social pressure, thus acting out Hannah Arendt's idea of the banality of evil?  Or did most people, at some early glimpse of trouble, decide to stop thinking? Or did most people knowingly live hypocritical lives day after day, laying low, passively hoping that the entire thing would wash over and that they and their families would emerge intact, though compromised?

This photo of August Landmesser inspires me, reminding me that nothing I ever face will compare to what he faced.  If he could stand up to the Nazi's, I will never have any excuse for failing to speak what I believe to be truth, no matter how upset people around me are getting.  August Landmesser's photo is an excellent reason for being the first one in the room to stand up and tell the mob that you disagree with them. 

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