Good manners and the counter intuitive response

An older piece from the Christian Science Monitor.  A recent trip to a produce market reminded me to post this.

My random acts of kindness versus talk-radio-type rudeness

In my neighborhood, I've found that even small gestures have made a big difference.

By Susan DeMerssemanNOVEMBER 13, 2009

BERKELEY, CALIF. — 

This fall's trio of outbursts (from Rep. Joe Wilson, singer Kanye West, and tennis star Serena Williams) brought the topic of civility front and center.

Like bad weather, everyone complains about rude behavior. But unlike bad weather, we can actually do something about it. Right?

I have started a small-scale experiment to see if one person can change the public tone.

My proving ground is a popular produce market in my neighborhood. You might think it would attract a lot of people seeking health and harmony.

Not so much. A grumpier, more sour crowd would be hard to find. Maybe it's the narrow aisles or the limited parking, but the people who shop there are often very cranky.

So as a quiet mission I sometimes see if I can turn the tide just a little during my regular shopping trips. It makes the long lines and narrow aisles more tolerable when I have this secondary mission.

I start with simply trying to keep a pleasant expression. I give other shopping carts the right of way. And I offer sincere compliments.

One day I told an older lady how much I admired her beautiful white hair. Her big smile and "Oh my gosh, you made my day" response reminded me how little it takes.

This small exchange transformed the tone of each of our trips to the market. This type of change is possible in almost any setting, and with remarkably small gestures. Even if I haven't been able to spread mass goodwill, at least I am not part of the problem.

What does it say about our society when the considerate, polite gestures have become out of the ordinary? We have become too casual with our own manners. If more of us were doing things, even small things, to sweeten the social stew, those people who are bitter or sour would stand out as unnatural more. And that could encourage more polite behavior.

Some people say that good manners render one less competitive in the workforce. On the contrary, there is great power in good manners. Even teaching small children how to use "please" and "thank you," along with other little habits, will open opportunity and instill a pattern into adulthood.

As a psychologist, I have worked in communities where social skills and the ability to reframe a potential conflict can be life saving factors for youngsters. But even when it isn't a matter of life and death, the ability and willingness to express respect can make our own lives much better.

I admit it is disappointing when courtesy is met with an entitled response – or no response. There are times when driving that I'll stop or pull over to let another car pass, and get nothing – no acknowledgment from the other driver. It makes me want to yell at the top of my lungs, in the most sarcastic way I can "You're welcome!" (OK, I have done that a few times). But that kind of response accomplishes little. What do I gain? It certainly doesn't make me feel like a winner.

When my son was a teenager, he liked to dress as though he had just lost a hundred pounds and hadn't bothered to buy new clothes. One day, he and I were crossing the street together and a driver waiting for us pointed to him and made a rude gesture.

Instead of what might have been the automatic response, I put my arm around my goofy looking son as if I were the proudest mom in town and gave the thumbs up sign to the driver.

That counterintuitive response helped reframe the situation, and rather than leave a bitter taste, it felt good. The driver's confused expression was a satisfying reaction. And it helped my son see the power of a little good.

There's a church song that goes, "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me." Maybe we need a new version: "Let there be civility on earth, and let it begin with me."

Many people are ready to be part of something positive. Small actions repeated do make a difference. We can start today.

Susan DeMersseman is a psychologist and parent educator.

Myth is truth

Rural Mythology

            The web has over 470,00 citations related to urban myths. You can go to many of them and find out that some wild story you've heard is in fact bogus.  But the ones on rural mythology deal more with literary matters and information about Norse gods, not crazy stories from the heartland.  So I had no place to go to prove to my husband that I hadn't completely made up one of the classic myths of my childhood. I had to rely upon another source -- actual people, rural people.

            "Don't cross your eyes because if someone comes up and hits you in the back of the head they will get stuck that way".  When you're little the thought of people lurking around waiting to find someone with crossed eyes so they can make it permanent doesn't strike you as illogical. So, last summer at a 4th of July party, with my husband near by, I asked and sure enough, every one at the table back in my rural homeland had heard that one.

            Then they began to offer other ones they had heard. Mostly passed along by older siblings and often created by older siblings.  One woman shared that her older five siblings convinced the "little ones" that if you planted rabbit poops the Easter bunny would grow there. So the "little ones" did and watched every day for a fuzzy tail or floppy ear to emerge from their bunny beds.

            My older brothers created more havoc with their mythology. One told me that if you picked a mole you would die. So as I scratched my little arm one day in the first grade, off came a mole and I went into a complete panic. I couldn't tell the puzzled nun why, but I insisted that I was very sick and they should call my mother right away. I didn't want to die without her.  I also couldn't tell the nun why, because even at 6 I knew that there was a small chance that this, like the other 500 crazy things my brothers had told me, was not true.

My mother came to get me and I don't even remember what happened after that. She probably explained things quietly to me and not so quietly to my older brother.

Some rural myth is regional and some familial and some just crazy stuff older kids make up to control the little ones. One from my oldest brother kept me out of his room. According to him there was something called white lead that he used with his oil paints and if you breathed it, it would dissolve your liver. As with much mythology there was a grain of truth in it, but to a 6-year-old it was gospel. And so when I even got near his room I held my breath and washed any skin that might have touched anything near his room.

Then one evening, as my mother made divinity candy, I took a drink from a little glass, set it down and it foamed. Not realizing that this had been used to measure egg whites for the candy, I was certain I'd been poisoned and went into a panic (yes-another one). This time my mom, who was a nurse, thought that I was going into shock. So they rushed me to the doctor for a shot of something to knock me out.  My brothers no doubt got another "explanation". And I grew up to become a child psychologist.

Lots of rural mythology had to do with health and the workings of the body. We didn't have as many sidewalks to worry about as our urban cousins, but even we heard, "Don't step on a crack or you'll break your mother's back". Certain members of the community were excellent at predicting the weather by the feeling in their joints. But usually we heard about their predictions after the weather event occurred, "Yup, I knew it was going to rain, my elbow was acting up."

I grew up with four older brothers and remember many dinners at which my father told the boys that eating the skins from the baked potatoes would "grow hair on their chest". Even as a little one I understood that this was a metaphor for being strong and healthy, yet I never developed a taste for potato skins.

My mother had her own brand of mythology. Some also had to do with health and appearance. But a lot of hers turned out to have more than a grain of truth.  She said that she thought she didn't have wrinkles because she didn't hold grudges. Notably, she lived to be 90 with a sweet, smooth face. She consciously tried to maintain a pleasant expression and with that pleasant expression often went the pleasant response, "That's nice."  When my mother went on automatic pilot mentally, it was comforting the way she continued to say, "that's nice" to information she could no longer process.

            I admit that I have absorbed and passed on to my children some of this mythology. Not the part about crossed eyes, stepping on cracks or picking moles. But they have had to listen to my encouragement of a pleasant expression and positive response. They tease me about it now, but someday when I go on automatic pilot mentally, I know that they will be glad for my smile and my pleasant response. Some myth is truth.

Selfies? What self?

Since this article was published the current "appearancist" trend is an obsession with presenting an attractive digital image of oneself. Different technology -- same obsession. Adjusted "selfies" and non photoshopped pictures of celebrities become newsworthy.

Has beauty become our beast?

BySusan DeMerssemanAPRIL 13, 2004

BERKELEY, CALIF. — 

It seems that almost every TV network has some sort of reality "makeover" show. Three of these involve serious plastic surgery and one even requires the participants to take part in a "beauty" contest after their transformations.

During a recent workshop for teenagers, I brought up the issue of appearance in their world. They reacted in a sort of resigned anger regarding the power of media images over how they should look and what they should own.

I asked if they thought we would ever reach the point where qualities that were not visible would matter more than appearance. Would that human tendency to aspire to what is rare or difficult to attain trump the obsession with "beauty"?

Now, it is easy to be plump - very easy. And so, the sought-after appearance is slender - very slender.

For example, in times of deprivation, it was beautiful to be a little plump. In times when only peasants were tan, it was beautiful to be as pale as possible - or to powder oneself to appear so.

I suggested that perhaps, now that medicine and technology make it possible to appear almost any way one wants - at least any way one is willing or able to pay for - could it be that positive internal qualities will become sought after? Could qualities such as perseverance, honesty, and compassion be things that people strive to develop? Will they come to qualify as the "rare things"?

The teenagers were not optimistic. I'm afraid I'm not, either, but I continue to hope.

I wonder if the maturing majority will help change the values of our society. Aging baby-boomers make up a huge market. Will what they value affect this trend?

It's a long shot.

Advertisers, whose revenues support most media, focus mainly on the young, considered a more malleable market. Perhaps more important, there is no sector of the economy that can profit by selling honesty, compassion, or perseverance as a commodity or product. So such values are not heavily promoted.

And, unfortunately, media images are the pool in which our cultural values are reflected and reinforced. What is valued in this pool is appearance - the material and the superficial.

How can a child who grows up in American culture not believe that billboards are altars to what is important?

I grew up hearing phrases such as "Beauty is as beauty does," "He has a beautiful heart," and "Don't judge a book by its cover." We were cautioned not to try to keep up with the Joneses. It was considered bad form to focus too much on appearance and possessions.

But now, as one wise old gentleman once said, "These youngsters are living in the kingdom of thingdom."

The trend to reshape oneself through plastic surgery is perhaps just another example of how our society often confuses the possible with the necessary. Still, one of those invisible qualities that my parents valued and instilled in me causes me to look for some positive implication in our current trend of transformation to meet a narrow standard of "beauty."

And so, I hope, as we search for the next rare thing, we start to look inside.

• 

Susan DeMersseman is a psychologist and parent educator.

New Year's resolution? In reverse.

Published 6 years ago and worth revisiting every now and then.

Breaking down New Year's goals into baby steps

Susan DeMersseman, Special to The Chronicle

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Embroidered sampler on how one can begin to accomplish tasks when feeling overwhelmed. Photo: Raymond Holbert, Demerssemans@yahoo.com / SF

This time of year a lot of lists are written. Unfortunately, many of the same goals keep appearing on these lists year after year. They often include things that need to be done around the house, home improvement or organization projects. In conducting stress-reduction workshops, I noticed how frequently people mentioned the perennial unfinished project list as a source of stress.

Part of the problem in accomplishing the goal is that it appears at the top of the page. We often don't think about the fact that the item needs to be at the bottom of the page with dozens of steps preceding it. It's clearly not as simple as placing the item at the bottom of the page, but that act realizes the truth that the lack of accomplishment is not a character flaw, but a lack of planning. We are not just being lazy or procrastinating - more often we're missing a clear path to the goal.

This faulty thinking reminded me of a sampler I embroidered with the phrase, "Plan your work, then work your plan." Most people in the workshops had not really planned their work, even though they were making stabs at it.

From that observation I began including an activity in the stress-management workshops that focused on the process of planning one's work. It also recognized the importance of giving a name to all the little obstacles that are between the goal and its accomplishment. I titled the activity the Yabut List and invited participants to work in pairs, but it is not a complicated exercise and can easily be done alone.

The directions are simple. First, write the goal at the bottom of a page, then start a series of yabuts, all reasons that the specific task can't be done. Write each yabut down, working your way up to the top of the page by answering each yabut with another.

One participant shared her reappearing goal of getting the bathroom remodeled. It started with: "Get the bathroom redone." The first yabut: "Yabut I can't do that until I get the name of a good contractor." So, her partner wrote, "Get the name of a good contractor."

The next yabut: "Yabut I can't do that until I call my cousin's neighbor, she had a great outcome." And her partner wrote down, "Call my cousin's neighbor."

"Yabut I can't call her until I find the gardening book she loaned me." And her partner wrote down, "Find the gardening book."

The process continued with each yabut translated into a step. "Yabut I can't do that until I can get into the garage, where we stored all the books when we repainted the office. Yabut I can't do that until I get my son's car out of the way. Yabut I can't do that until I get the garage door fixed. Yabut I can't do that until I get the number of the garage-door installer."

The final step was, "Yabut I can't do that until I get online and find his number." The partner wrote down, "Get online and get the number!"

When the exercise was done, the woman had a list of steps to get her started. Little did she realize when she began the exercise that her bathroom remodel hinged on the phone number of the garage-door installer.

I don't know if the woman ever got her bathroom remodeled. I do hope that she and the other participants gained a new strategy for chipping away at the annual list by understanding that most accomplishments happen through dozens of baby steps, formerly viewed as obstacles.

Read more: 

http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Breaking-down-New-Year-s-goals-into-baby-steps-3178802.php#ixzz2Gk1uyq6j

What is Home?

HOME FROM HOME 

I just got home from home. I know, that does sound odd, but it is what is (odd again).

I’ve lived in the same town for over 40 years and in the same house for over 30 years, but I’m not from here. I’m from the Black Hills of South Dakota and I always will be. I just returned from a wonderful trip there.

When someone asks, "Where are you from?" I have always found it hard to describe myself as from here. So I go home to where I’m from and come back to where I live. But now, after all these years, when we leave South Dakota I can finally say and feel like I’m on my way home.

My husband and children were born and raised here. They live among the familiar images and locations that shaped them.  However, my children have spent such good times with family in the summers and winters in South Dakota that they feel a little like they are from there as well.

For me it takes being back on those streets to conjure and revive the images and often the emotions. It feels so familiar and so affirming. And coming from a place that has in many ways stayed the same insures that comfort.

A photographer friend, Amanda Boe, provided a quote from Wallace Stegner for one of her shows. “Expose a child to a particular environment at his susceptible time and he will perceive in shapes of that environment until he dies.”

For me it is more than perception of shapes, I am drawn back to that environment and will be until I die.

I once wrote about my belief that you can go home again, “Home is not an historical construct, home is always under construction.” And now I feel, that in spite of my heart drifting back, the construction has been continuing here too and my concept of home has expanded. So, it makes perfect sense that I can now say, “I just got home from home.”