a perfectly good life

I don’t have time to exercise, I am a busy man.
I don’t have time to exercise, I’ll do it when I can.
First I need to finish my work, I’ve got my priorities straight.
I’ll catch a quick lunch at McDonald’s, I’m too busy to watch my weight.

When I was young and looking for love, exercise was my obsession.
My rippled abs and muscled arms on women made quite an impression.
But once I was married with kids to support and obligations to fulfill,
I stopped exercising and I overate. My sex life went straight downhill.

I don’t have time to exercise, I am a busy man.
I don’t have time to exercise, I’ll do it when I can.
I’m the man of the house. Everyone’s counting on me. I am the great provider.
And I’m too tired to move at the end of the day, so my butt’s getting wider and wider.

When the kids fell in love and left the nest to start families of their own,
I wanted desperately to see the world, from Sao Paolo to Cologne.
But my knees were too weak, blood pressure too high, and arrhythmias pounded my heart.
I wanted to work out so I could follow my dreams, but I was too stiff to even start.

I don’t have time to exercise, I am a busy man.
I don’t have time to exercise, I’ll do it when I can.
I wish I could do the things I used to do, when my body could pass any test.
But with mounting pressures and deadlines to meet, it’s no wonder I’m feeling so stressed.

Now I am old and confined to my bed, with new symptoms appearing each day,
I dream of my youth: If I could start over again, this time I would not go astray.
I’d take care of myself. I’d watch what I eat, and get involved in a particular sport,
But I am too old and too tired, too weak and too fat, my time left on this earth is short.

And now,

I don’t have time to exercise.

Why is it that husbands and wives often take on roles that can be, and usually are, destructive to their marriage? Jokes about wives being back seat drivers, and husbands refusing to be driven by their wives, are symbolic looks at what is a much deeper issue. The wife who feels unsafe and compelled to control is usually a person haunted by anxiety about life. She has difficulty relaxing as a passenger because it is likely that she feels her own life is out of control. Maybe at some point in the relationship she inadvertently handed the wheel of her life over to her husband, and she is left feeling unsettled because of it.

This is a complicated dynamic. It is not unusual for couples to merge with each other because initially it feels so darn good. Unfortunately, what tastes sweet at the start often turns sour after time. The caring, take-charge kind of guy might make his partner feel loved and secure in the beginning. He may give her the feeling that, with him, everything will be OK. More often than not her original family was not a stable, secure place, and in the marriage she feels taken care of for the first time. It backfires when she surrenders herself to her spouse in such a way that she stops taking care of herself.

Often husbands find themselves in the metaphoric driver’s seat because they actually feel safer being in charge. Taking the wheel can provide one with a sense of competence and control as well as serving as a barrier against one’s own vulnerability. Just as it is not in the wife’s best interest to surrender her abilities to her husband, it is also damaging to the husband to camouflage his frailties in compulsively competent behavior.

So what is a good prophylactic measure for couples to take in order to avoid falling into these familiar traps? The answer is easy to say, but near impossible to do and takes a lifetime to successfully implement.

The way football fans rev up for the Super Bowl, our family looks forward to Oscar night. The whole day is planned around the event, with cookies baking, and homework completed before we gather around the television. It gets our adrenalin pumping as we identify with the actors who wait with a mix of poise and vulnerability. There are moments when we actually find ourselves thinking that we are the actors ourselves: we are winners; we have come so far, and it is our night!

The Barbara Walters Special is foreplay for the evening, allowing us intimacy with a select few. Before her interview, who knew that Helen Mirren was disarming, humble, and even spunky? We decided then and there that she had to win, even though before the interview we were routing for Meryl Streep. (Aren’t we fickle?) And, for me, if Eddie Murphy didn’t walk away with gold in hand it would be my own personal defeat. Then there was Ellen, the boy-woman telling the world of the betrayal that haunted her childhood. We were all in love with her, routing for the show’s success to make up for the horrors of her past.

I love rollercoasters. Tension increases with each “click-click” of the chain that pulls me up the first peak, until neither the car I’m in nor my heart rate can get any higher. Plummeting down the other side, the release is so great that I have no control over the hysterical screams that emanate from the deepest core of my being. In the end, thanks to the skill of the physicists who designed the ride, I emerge unharmed, feeling victorious and eager to experience it all again. Five tickets for exhilaration: it always seems like a fair price.

It’s not been nearly as much fun riding the thrill rides of my emotions. I’ve spent a lot of time in my internal theme park, stuck on rides I neither chose nor controlled. If the outside world accepted me, it was like I was handed five free tickets and a trip to the front of the line. Life was a fantastic rush. Nothing could stop me. I felt in charge of my life, and I was happy. The problem is, the outside world is not always so generous. It can withhold the valuable tickets even when we deserve them; or worse, it can send us straight into the eeriest haunted house. When I didn’t get the validation I craved from the outside world, I felt hopeless and worthless. I was stuck in the hall of mirrors, trying to find my way out, constantly confronted by a distorted image of myself. I believed what I saw, and it wasn’t a pretty sight.

It is my firm belief that there is almost no better mood elevator than being engaged in an act of creativity. I have often looked at the creative process as a chance to give ourselves a “god-like” experience. When we knit a sweater, write a story, paint a painting, or play the piano, we are putting something into the universe that hadn’t previously been there. This process requires work, planning, organizational skills, and of course imagination and creativity. Mastery of these qualities can be satisfying, at least; and exhilarating, at best. Because I have a love-hate relationship with writing (a subject for another post!), I have decided to take a plunge and actually write a story, or maybe even something longer (dare I say novel?; I am not sure where it will wind up) in this blog. Enough talk, I want to expose myself by actually doing a public piece. I will be demonstrating my process, and exposing my imperfections. I have writen previously about how risk taking is a key ingredient in creativity, and accomplishment, and now I will put my “money where my mouth is.” I will commit to contributing to this story at least once per week.

I might also remark on the details of the process. For starters, my biggest fear is that I will lose steam, that perhaps I will get off to a great start, but will have difficulty sticking with it. Of course, I anticipate wanting the material to be impressive, but the discipline of sticking with the project is my greatest challenge. Wish me luck!!!!!

Here is the start of my story/novel/whatever:

When I was at Harvard studying Russian Lit. twenty-nine years ago, my friends were convinced that I would be either a famous writer myself, or, if not that, then I would without a doubt teach at an Ivy one day. No one would have expected to find me living on the streets of New York, homeless, and writing my novel in the various Apple stores on any computer that was free for a moment.

The feeling “I should be doing more” is epidemic in our accomplishment driven culture. As I was deciding between a shower before making the bed and a 15-minute yoga workout (where I’d make sure to squeeze in a few minutes to work on the full lung breathing I am trying to perfect so the wheezing from my allergies might improve) I worried that I might not be leaving enough time before my first patient of the day. So, I chose to give myself a break and see a few patients before showering. I wanted to practice my yoga and breathing in a more peaceful context. If there is a psychological component to my allergies, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to unravel this one! It is strange that the rapid, seemingly productive start of this busy morning left me with the feeling that I wasn’t doing enough.

My patients work in a variety of careers, ranging from artists to stockbrokers to teachers. I have noticed they often experience feelings of yearning, with a tinge of anguish mixed in, if they have not had a creatively productive day. It’s not unlike constipation: there is something inside us and it’s supposed to come out! How many of us walk around with filled colons? People we meet throughout the day might never guess we are so full of shit. We look and act just fine. The artist not producing, the mother not connecting, or the athlete not moving, is guaranteed to feel like crap.

I was impressed when my son and his girlfriend, both sophomore BFA students at the University of Southern California, described how they prepared for a recent mid-term oral examination. They called it an emotional vaccine, and I think it’s a valuable technique any of us could use to prepare for a situation where our emotions might negatively impact our performance.

There were several reasons why they thought their chances of “choking” on the exam were high. First, it would be conducted by one of their favorite professors, who they wanted desperately to please. Second, it would be in front of all of their classmates, who they wanted desperately to impress. Finally, it was in seven difficult sections, that they hoped desperately not to forget. As they prepared for the exam, worrying about everything that could go wrong, their anxiety increased to a point of near paralysis. That’s when they discovered how to give themselves an emotional vaccine.

I am in a horrible mood, and have been for the last few hours. It started when I realized that people are actually reading my blog entries. Some found the entries smart, and even clever (which is scary because now there is pressure to keep up the smart clever stuff!). I don’t know what I was thinking before, as I unselfconsciously wrote my little thoughts and feelings. I never should have allowed my husband to talk me into this project. He is so much braver when it comes to going public with his ideas. I’ve carried a dull nausea and feeling of dread in my stomach around much of the day, and I know I should write something, or that empty feeling will never go away.

And it better be good!

This reminds me of how hard it is to be a student. There were many afternoons and evenings during my teens and twenties as a student when I knew there was something I needed to do, but I did not want to do it.

The New York Times attributes the following quote to Ruth Bernhard:

“I allowed life to give me presents. And everything just sort of happened the way it was supposed to happen. I did not pursue anything. It more or less pursued me.”

Addendum: I just found the following wonderful note, written in 1995 by Ruth Bernhard:

I struggle to stay focused, to keep myself in charge of how I feel, instead of letting my emotions float on the murky and sometimes turbulent waters of my thoughts. I have been working hard recently to allow myself to consciously dictate how I see my day progressing, so that, as Thoreau said, I can live the life that I imagine. Sometimes I am successful, and I feel in charge. I then feel confident enough to stay at risk in my social interactions, propelling me to make deeper connections, and to proceed into the future professionally with the attitude that everything is going to be OK. There’s nothing that stifles creativity more than worry and doubt, and nothing more inspirational than confidence.

I believe we create the life we live from within our own imaginations. You may have heard the maxim that the universe gives back to us what we give to it – the “what goes around comes around” theory. There are many examples throughout history, an obvious one being Mother Theresa, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after dedicating her life to helping the poor and needy (and, let’s not forget she’s now a Saint!). There are plenty of other examples, but this is starting to feel like a history lesson and that’s not where I want to go with it. I’d rather write on a more personal level.