Spread the Words

Starbucks recently introduced a campaign that they hoped would stimulate dialogue about race relations. Its baristas were instructed to write “Race Together” on their customers’ coffee cups. After just one week, the company pulled the plug on the campaign, but they claim it wasn’t because of the negative backlash on social media. Perhaps it was just taking too long to write that message neatly while the customer was twitching in line, waiting for his caffeine fix.

Whatever the reason, it got me thinking about the power of words. Each January, I along with dozens of others put out a list of banned words for the upcoming year. These are always negative words and phrases, ones that are like fingernails scratching on chalkboard. It dawned on me that this is a glass-half-empty approach. What we really need is a glass-half-full list of words that we urge others to use. In the interest of promoting positive thinking (and speaking), here are my suggestions.

My first grouping features words that support people’s efforts to become the best possible versions of themselves. Let’s talk about empowerment, encouragement and potential. I especially love the copy line my husband came up with for his store SPECTRUM-India. He’s taken the glass-half-full concept further and tells his customers they are “an overflowing glass of phenomenal potential.” He even has T-shirts with that message on them.

We should use language that helps folks tap into their potential. Don’t put up roadblocks and scatter disincentives. Instead, promote creativity, inspiration, and imagination.

In the spirit of Race Together, we should also fill our conversations about how to achieve personal goals with concepts like collaboration, togetherness, compassion and harmony. I prefer those to the commonly used teamwork. That sounds more like the mechanics of achievement and less like the relationship part of getting there.

I also love words that suggest that we should be happy with what we have achieved in life. This of course assumes that we have first made an honest effort to be the best that we can. Let’s hear it for contentment, serenity, fulfillment and abundance. (But please, not an abundance of caution! I banned that phrase for 2015.) Along those lines, let’s also be thankful for what we have and make regular use of appreciation and gratitude.

I’m attracted to terms that may sound a bit New Age to some of you, but that put me in mind of a highly positive approach to living. Holistic and organic are two of these (and I’m not thinking about food here). These words have me considering all aspects of my life, about how to keep them in harmony, and about being open to change and growth even when it might not have been on my radar.

The Chinese (or Buddhist) philosophical concept of The Tao translates to The Way. I’d like us to practice thinking and talking about ways to be. Let’s be generous and full of kindness toward others. Let’s be full of promise and wonderment for ourselves. Be proud of what we’ve accomplished and give praise to others for their achievements. Look at the glass as half full, on its way to overflowing.

Wouldn’t it be great if we all made a conscious effort to spread positive words and thoughts like these? All that good karma wafting throughout our universe! Sing along now: “What a wonderful world it would be.” (Thank you, Satchmo.)

Retirement Planning – Creative Sparks

When I hear about reunions with people I haven’t been in touch with for thirty or forty years, I don’t rush to put them on my calendar in ink. Until recently, with the exception of my fellow band geeks, I hadn’t given much thought to what my high school classmates might have done with their lives. Ditto for my summer crowd

It was a 45 minute bus ride to my regional high school, where only 40 per cent of the students went on to college. The cute guys were more likely to be in auto mechanics and shop than in my calculus or physics classes. Let me amend that. The bad boys that I found fascinating were more likely to be mechanics and shoppies.

We lived year round in a summer community, and the seasonal folks came from all around our state. Looking back, it makes sense that they had the potential to become really interesting adults. But adult potential wasn’t something that concerned me.

Here is my deep dark secret. I was a shallow teenager, not prone to introspection and philosophizing. I was more interested in how attractive my girlfriend’s brother had become during his freshman year in college. Or the muscles that my brother’s beach buddies had developed over the winter.

One thing that has surprised me about the people from my past with whom I’ve reconnected as I approach retirement is how interesting they seem to be. They are smart and well-traveled—one was even in the Peace Corps. The biggest revelation is that they are amazingly creative, especially those who are already retired. This gives me hope for my own retirement.

One of my summer friends does puppetry with her husband. She studied it in Prague decades ago. We’re talking serious stuff, not faces drawn on your fingertips in ball point pen. A college classmate took up clarinet late in life and is totally immersed in her community band. My brother, who retired very early, became a fabulous outdoor photographer once he had the time to pursue it. [Check out his recent fall trip. http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker/sigma_dp1x and http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker/gallery/sd15_fall_2010

I used to do all sorts of artsy things. The company where I worked had a holiday doll pageant. They provided naked dolls (no snickering, please) and asked employees to make or buy outfits for them so they could be donated. They gave prizes in four categories for the handmade outfits. I won first prize thirteen years in a row and eventually captured first in each of the four categories. Mutter “competitive b- - -h” all you want, but I truly enjoyed doing it.

Perhaps retirement will afford me the time and the opportunity to take up new artistic pursuits, like photography. I bought a Nikon digital camera several years ago, but my eyes are so bad, I have trouble focusing. Jagdish would like to learn ballroom dancing. He has two left feet and I’ve broken both of mine (mercifully, not at the same time.) Also, his rhythm is distinctly Indian, and then there’s my diminishing sense of balance. Dancing doesn’t seem too promising an option. I suppose writing is creative, but I was hoping for something more… well, artsy. (Or flamboyant?)

I’m sitting here, trying to feel creative, looking around for inspiration. My computer keyboard catches my eye. Some of the keys are almost completely clean, while others have dark, smudgy spots around their perimeters. I wonder why all the keys aren’t smudged. The cleanest ones are the home row, and the dirtiest are the numbers. Maybe Lily walks along the upper edge with her dirty paws and the keys I use most often are the cleanest. But the function keys on the very top row are also clean. There goes the Lily theory. I’m perplexed. I’m also tempted to go get some Qtips and cleaning fluid.

Then I get into Jagdish’s glass half empty/half full mode of thought (see last Wednesday’s blog.) Were the keys with the white spots in the middle at one point totally smudged, so now are half clean? Or were the white spots never covered, and somehow the smudges only accumulated around the perimeter, so now half dirty?

It doesn’t say much for my creative sparking that I’m so easily distracted by a computer keyboard. I’m feeling quite inadequate compared to my peers. What we have here is a failure to find a muse. I don’t know about you, but if there’s one place I’d expect to find my muse, it’s at the bottom of a—you guessed it—lovely bottle of vino.

See ya!