Guilt-Free Secret Keeping

As we age, one of the things we (hopefully) learn is how to keep a secret. When a friend confides in you, they are demonstrating their trust in you. Yet we love to show others how much we know, whether to gain status, recognition or prestige. In my twenties, this was the thing to do–to pass on my knowledge of another’s secret situation to show that I could be trusted. What lunacy!

Now that I have passed 40, I have learned to keep my mouth shut because NOT saying anything gets me much further in life with those I really care about. Case in point:

Once, in one of my early retail jobs, a friend confided in me that he would be leaving the company. Juicy information, no doubt, since management had no idea of his impending resignation. But I wanted his hours, which were more desirable than mine. So I went right to the supervisor to ask if I could change my hours to his “if” he left. Oh, I thought I was smooth, planting that seed. But my supervisor detected my excitement, and put two and two together. Needless to say, it ended badly, because my colleague was led out the next day with no notice due to “security reasons,” and not only did I lose a friend in him, my supervisor considered me a tattletale and my hours stayed the same.

Well maybe it took me twenty years of like situations to get it through my thick skull that the value keeping a secret extends beyond a simple trust issue; and the Universe decided to test my strength on this factor once more. Fast forward to this year, when a friend let me know she was leaving her job to start her own business. Oooh, here’s the rush again, for I knew something that will impact not only my team but the possibly the entire company that employed her. But this time, I sat back and measured the consequences. Who would benefit from my keeping my mouth shut this time? Well, obviously she would, since she could continue making her business plans while still employed there; I would, since I can show that I am trustworthy. Who would suffer? The company might, as it finds itself understaffed for a time until she could be replaced.

I asked myself: who is more important to me?

Well, in the grand scheme of things, friendship trumps a job anytime. Even in this depressed economy, I wouldn’t be sitting on my deathbed worrying about whether my boss thought I was a good employee. I would be concerned that my friends considered me a reliable, loving companion. So another lesson learned, and one step closer to guilt-free secret keeping.




The Recession May Be Over but the Guilt Lives On

Experts say that the recession is over.  What great news that is for those of us who may be a little tired of the black cloud of depression looming over us, but despite this wonderful revelation, the thunder is still rumbling.  This article in Newsweek touts that “The Recession Is Over!  But Not for You!”

Why not for me?  Can’t I be happy too?

And plopped right in the center of the article is a photo montage of the greediest people that are to blame for all of this mess.  The article continues to keep us beaten down and cringing:  “Having survived a near-death economic experience, Americans now need to focus on surviving what’s likely to be a pokey, painful recovery.”

Talk about a dose of guilt for those who actually don’t live every day just to survive!  Now I’m not knocking those that are down on their luck, but I am emphasizing here that we can decide which rain goggles we choose to look through.  Do yours show sun in the near distance, or just more rain?

Prejudice at the Gym

I work out at a gym that is full of stereotypes.  There’s the “meatheads” that pump up their biceps and then spend their rest time flexing them in front of the mirror.  There’s the college girls with the sports bra and low-rise yoga pants and sculpted stomachs.   Teased-up ponytailed lithe fairy yoga girls and over-aerobicized models lacking child-bearing hips.  Of course there’s normal people, too, with oversized t-shirts and sweaty backs toting their bottled water from machine to machine.

But there’s one regular denizen of my gym who was sure to send me into a tizzy every time I saw her.  She is maybe 5’2″, 90 pounds, with smooth tanned skin and size 56 DDD additions to her chest that she has a difficult time covering, if she had an inkling to attempt covering them at all.  Smacking gum like a junior-high student, she would work with the free weights, the exercise ball, the cable machines, all the time viewing herself in the ample mirrors.  Everyone–especially the meatheads–knows her, and she is jovial to anyone that speaks to her.  She never speaks to me, since I spend most of my time glaring at her and never attempted to strike up a conversation.  Of course my boyfriend knows her well, because they use the same machines in the northeast corner of the gym.

She’s a stripper–no surprise– but to me she was a threat for no good reason.  For she embodied the kind of person that spent all of her time focusing on her external appearance in order to please others.  After all, that’s how she makes her money,  pleasing others with the body she spends so much time perfecting.  She was the embodiment to me of the perfect little love doll that every man wanted purely for pleasure; and that to me was somehow sleazy, undermining healthy relationships with the allure of easy sex.  But as I watched this woman so different from me, I recognized a trigger in myself from some past experience where I had felt like I was not enough–and I redirected my thoughts to remind myself that we are all one.  She was simply different than me, but still a human with wants and needs and issues.  Perhaps she wasn’t the Jezebel I wanted her to be.  For all I knew she was putting herself through law school, or paying her grandmother’s nursing home expenses and dancing was a way to make that happen with the gifts she was given.

So a few days ago, I stopped glaring at her, and started smiling at her.  I haven’t received a smile back yet, but I am sure it will come in time when she realizes that I accept her for who she is, not what she looks like or how she earns her living.

Saying No to Yourself

It seems like when we were kids, we heard “no” far more often than we ever heard “yes.”  Of course, I know that it was in our own best interest that our parents made these decisions on our behalf, since they were protecting us from things and situations that we didn’t know were harmful.  But to a kid, it’s just a bummer to be shot down when our thirst for learning and new experiences is at an all-time high.  So when we grow up, we don’t want to have to say no to ourselves…after all, we are making decisions for ourselves now, and we are willing to accept the consequences for our poor decisions.

This, of course, leads to all sorts of vices, as many of our decisions are made for the purposes of instant gratification–ask anyone with a sizable handbag collection and I’m sure they will concur–rather than what’s really best for us.  We don’t want to miss out on any situations that could bring us joy or freedom; but this can lead to decisions that we later regret.

Take a serious night of drinking for example, or the Ding Dong-eating binge one night when those little black and white rolled cakes just looked too good to leave any in the box.  And then the next day comes along, and we wish we had said “no” to ourselves much like our parents had.  And what’s worse, we don’t learn the first time we do it, either.  It can take multiple examples of the same miserable experience to learn that some actions just don’t serve us.  If perhaps we could learn from our experience the first time, then when that second chance at failure is presented to us, we can make an alternate decision–which may actually include the word “no.”

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