Almost two years ago (but who’s counting?) I wrote a post titled “Appropriate.” As I often tell members of my Coping and Healing groups, whenever we name an important topic in the room, the opposite is also implied. Therefore, anything I write about “Inappropriate” today would also include aspects of “Appropriate.”
I think it’s appropriate that I move on with this blog post.
The inspiration for today’s blog post is somebody saying inappropriate things to me yesterday. By inappropriate, I mean
disrespectful,
toxic,
unprofessional,
unpleasant,
misdirected,
insulting,
condescending, and
dishonest.
Is it inappropriate to consult an online dictionary to see if that definition includes any of the same words in my list above?
in·ap·pro·pri·ate
/ˌinəˈprōprēət/
adjective
not suitable or proper in the circumstances.
“there are penalties for inappropriate behavior”
synonyms: unsuitable, unfitting, ill-suited, unseemly, unbecoming, unprofessional, unfit, unbefitting, indecorous, improper, lacking in propriety, ungentlemanly, unladylike.
“Unprofessional” makes it to both lists of “inappropriate.” Almost all of the other “inappropriate” words are appropriate to my experience yesterday (although I wonder about the appropriateness of “ungentlemanly” or “unladylike”).
When somebody is inappropriate, I
am shocked,
get angry,
feel at a loss for the right things to say,
try to get away from the person as soon as possible, and
enlist appropriate people to help me deal with the situation.
What do you do when somebody is inappropriate?
I’m not sure if any of my photos from yesterday are appropriate to today’s topic.
Is it inappropriate that I also featured an Australian band in yesterday’s post? Is it inappropriate that I’m guessing how my readers from Australia are going to respond?
Gratitude is never inappropriate, so thanks to all who helped me create today’s “Inappropriate” post and — of course! — to you, my always appropriate readers.
Yesterday, in my therapy group, I wrote the word “empathy” twice on the white board.
I wrote “empathy” twice because I heard and experienced so much of it from the group participants. I especially noted and appreciated it because I hear and experience so little empathy, these days, from world leaders.
Why do the participants in a therapy group seem to have so much more empathy than world leaders?
Is it because people who have come together to cope, heal, support, and learn from each other naturally have more empathy?
What does your empathy tell you about that?
Here’s a definition of empathy, again:
em·pa·thy
/ˈempəTHē/
noun
the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
synonyms: affinity with, rapport with, sympathy with, understanding of, sensitivity toward, sensibility to, identification with, awareness of, fellowship with, fellow feeling for, like-mindedness, togetherness, closeness to
“what is really important about learning a language is learning empathy for another culture”
Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It’s the capacity to understand that every war is won and lost. And that someone’s pain is as meaningful as your own. — Barbara Kingsolver.
Sympathy relies on a common experience. If you’re clumsy, you might have sympathy for others who tend to bump into things. Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to understand another person’s feelings even if you’ve never experienced them yourself. — Joe Gebbia
A prerequisite to empathy is just paying attention to the person in pain. — Daniel Goleman
Human nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations towards violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control. — Steven Pinker
Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It’s all through our own individual prisms. — Sterling K. Brown
Empathy is the latest code word for liberal activism, for treating the Constitution as malleable clay to be kneaded and molded in whatever form justices want. It represents an expansive view of the judiciary in which courts create policy that couldn’t pass the legislative branch or, if it did, would create voter backlash. — Karl Rove
When you show deep empathy towards others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems. — Stephen Covey
The struggle of my life created empathy — I could relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love me. — Oprah Winfrey
Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It’s the impetus for creating change. — Max Carver
Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals. — Neil Gaiman
Is there empathy in my other photos from yesterday?
Which of those photos represents empathy best, to you?
After almost seven years of blogging daily about the healing power of community, I discover, here and now, that I have never, ever titled a post “Community” before.
COMMUNITY noun, often attributive
com·mu·ni·ty | \ kə-ˈmyü-nə-tē \
plural communities
Definition of community
1 : a unified body of individuals: such as
a : the people with common interests living in a particular area
broadly : the area itself
the problems of a large community
b : a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society
a community of retired persons
a monastic community
c : a body of persons of common and especially professional interests scattered through a larger society
the academic community
the scientific community
d : a body of persons or nations having a common history or common social, economic, and political interests
the international community
e : a group linked by a common policy
f : an interacting population of various kinds of individuals (such as species) in a common location
g : STATE, COMMONWEALTH
2a : a social state or condition
The school encourages a sense of community in its students.
b : joint ownership or participation
community of goods
c : common character : LIKENESS
community of interests
d : social activity : FELLOWSHIP
3 : society at large
the interests of the community
When I look at news stories from the world community, I do not find a focus on community, Instead, I see divisiveness, “other”-ing, and antonyms of community like inequality, conflict, polarity, incompatibility, incongruence, disproportion, imbalance, disagreement, discrepancy, disparity, dissimilarity, unlikeness, forlornness, and loneliness.
Do you see community in my photos from yesterday ?
Don Henley, who used to be in a community of Eagles, has created several songs about community, including this one …
I look forward to hearing from my community of readers.
No matter what community I’m in, I’m always looking for expressions of gratitude. Thanks to the community of people who helped me create this post and — of course! — thanks to YOU.
Definition of tell me about it
informal
—used to say that one understands what someone is talking about because one has had the same or a similar experience
“Something is wrong with that computer.” “Yeah, tell me about it. I can never get it to work properly.”
I don’t know if something is wrong with my computer, but I can’t post a shortened version of this video (in which I seem to be saying “Tell me about it” for 18 minutes) (and which I first told you about in this post) to YouTube.
Let me tell you about what happens when I (and perhaps you) click on that link. I receive a message that says “Unable to process this video.” However, I could still download it, although I got a message that told me “Google Drive can’t scan this file for viruses. Free.mp4 (1.4G) is too large for Google to scan for viruses. Would you still like to download this file?”
Too complicated or too much trouble? Tell me about it.
Once my son returns from teaching English in Jordan, maybe he can tell me about how to post that video (which he shot in our gazebo two weeks ago) to YouTube. If you do look at the video, tell me about which title you prefer:
“Tell me about it.”
“Free therapy with Ann.”
“I’m listening.”
I can also tell you about the original, unedited, noisy, uncentered version of that video, which is here:
At this point, when I’m looking at a preview of this post, I’m telling you that video has this message: “Please wait. We are converting this video.”
Tell me about it.
In the meantime, I’m going to tell you about these recent photos I haven’t told you about before.
I want to break free of more technical problems, but I won’t tell you about it. Instead, I’ll tell you about my gratitude to all who support my telling you about it, every day, here on WordPress.
Thoughts about those ways of expressing gratitude? Tell me about it.
And yet, this is my first blog post with the word “act” in the title. Time to act!
What does “act” mean to you? To Merriam-Webster, it means:
act noun
\ ˈakt \
Definition of act
1a : the doing of a thing : DEED
an act of courage
b law : something done voluntarily
2 : the process of doing something : ACTION
caught in the act
3 : the formal product of a legislative body : STATUTE
an act of Congress
also : a decision or determination of a sovereign, a legislative council, or a court of justice
4 : one of the principal divisions of a theatrical work (such as a play or opera)
a play in three acts
5a : one of successive parts or performances (as in a variety show or circus)
a magic act
b : the performer or performers in such an act
a two-person comedy act
c : a performance or presentation identified with a particular individual or group
They took their act on the road.
d : the sum of a person’s actions or effects that serve to create an impression or set an example
a hard act to follow
6 : a display of affected behavior : PRETENSE
put on an act that deceived nobody
His friendly concern was just an act.
7 often capitalized : a formal record of something done or transacted
8 : a state of real existence rather than possibility
into the act or in on the act
: into an undertaking or situation as an active participant
saw the success they were having and wanted to get in on the act
act verb
acted; acting; acts
intransitive verb
1 : to take action : MOVE
think before acting
acted favorably on the recommendation
2 : to conduct oneself : BEHAVE
act like a fool
3a : to perform on the stage
began acting at the age of eight
b : to behave as if performing on the stage : PRETEND
seemed angry but was just acting
4 : to perform a specified function : SERVE
trees acting as a windbreak
5 : to produce an effect : WORK
wait for a medicine to act
6 : to give a decision or award
adjourned without acting on the bill
7 of a play : to be capable of being performed
a play that acts well
transitive verb
1a : to represent or perform by action especially on the stage
will act the part of Romeo in tonight’s play
b : FEIGN, SIMULATE
act indifference
c : IMPERSONATE
2 : to play the part of as if in a play
act the man of the world
3 : to behave in a manner suitable to
Act your age.
4 obsolete : ACTUATE, ANIMATE
ACT abbreviation
Definition of ACT
1 Action for Children’s Television
2 Association of Classroom Teachers
3 Australian Capital Territory
To therapists, ACT (abbreviation) also means Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. I shall now act to quote the Wikipedia description about ACT:
The objective of ACT is not elimination of difficult feelings; rather, it is to be present with what life brings us and to “move toward valued behavior”.[6] Acceptance and commitment therapy invites people to open up to unpleasant feelings, and learn not to overreact to them, and not avoid situations where they are invoked. Its therapeutic effect is a positive spiral where feeling better leads to a better understanding of the truth.[7] In ACT, ‘truth’ is measured through the concept of ‘workability’, or what works to take another step toward what matters (e.g. values, meaning).
ACT (abbreviation) also means this:
When I was caught in the act taking that photo yesterday, I acted to smile and give a thumbs up to the ACT workers near that truck.
Here are other ways I acted yesterday:
I have to act fast to finish this post with a Stephen Sondheim song (which features actors avoiding action by focusing on fault).
It’s never just an act when I express gratitude to all who help me act to create this daily blog and — of course! — thanks to YOU.
Yesterday, when I was walking outside and being foolishly apprehensive about writing and delivering a “Report from the President” at a group therapy conference this weekend, I saw an invitation to come inside and be foolish.
Personally, I appreciate any invitation to come inside and accept all my different parts (from foolish to wise). How about you?
Here’s my next foolish thought: “The Fool” is the most evolved of all the Jungian archetypes.
The Fool/Jester archetype urges us to enjoy the process of our lives. Although the Fool/Jester can be prone to laziness and dissipation, the positive Fool/Jester invites us all out to play — showing us how to turn our work, our interactions with others, and even the most mundane tasks into FUN. The goal of the Fool/Jester is perhaps the wisest goal of all, which is just to enjoy life as it is, with all its paradoxes and dilemmas.
This fool now wants to look at a definition of “foolish.”
fool·ish
/ˈfo͞oliSH/
adjective
(of a person or action) lacking good sense or judgment; unwise.
“it was foolish of you to enter into correspondence.”
Her desperation led her to do something foolish; my desperation leads me to blogging. (Of course, everything leads me to blogging; I’ve been writing a daily blog in the morning for almost seven years.) (But what fool is counting?)
And if it’s foolish for me to write this blog before writing my report from the President, so be it.
Speaking of foolish, is it foolish for me to be worried about the stupid, silly, idiotic, halfwitted, witless, brainless, mindless, thoughtless, imprudent, incautious, irresponsible, injudicious, indiscreet, unwise, unintelligent, unreasonable, ill-advised, ill-considered, impolitic, rash, reckless, foolhardy, lunatic, absurd, senseless, pointless, nonsensical, inane, fatuous, ridiculous, laughable, risible, derisible, dumb, dim, dimwitted, dopey, gormless, damfool, half-baked, harebrained, crackbrained, peabrained, wooden-headed, thickheaded, nutty, mad, crazy, dotty, batty, dippy, cuckoo, screwy, wacky, barmy, daft, glaikit, dumb-ass, chowderheaded, and dotish reports from and about another President?
Worry is always foolish, because it doesn’t help anything.
Let’s be glaikit (Scottish word meaning foolish, giddy) together and look at my other foolish fotos from yesterday!
Michael was foolish enough to make LOTS of those delicious cod cakes last night. And I was foolish enough to clean my plate.
My first week of blogging, I was foolish enough to write a post about procrastination. After going inside that old post, I’m foolishly quoting it here:
if I AM going to wait until the last minute to do something, I wish to heaven I could block that procrastinated task totally out of my mind. But that’s not how it works for me. Usually, I’m exquisitely and uncomfortably aware of what I’m avoiding. Geesh. There’s got to be a way for procrastination to be more fun.
As I’ve gotten older, I have become more forgiving about my procrastinating tendencies. I’ve also realized that procrastination for me often has to do with insecurity. For example, I almost always wait until the last minute to do something that I think I might conceivably suck at doing — or, at least, where I might fall short of my own expectations and wishes.
One thing I’ve historically procrastinated about is …….. writing.
Maybe I procrastinate because I’m foolishly afraid of appearing foolish.
Here‘s the foolish song going through my foolish head, here and now:
Come inside and be foolish with a comment, below!
Finally, I shall finish this foolish post with a foolish foto to express my thanks to all those who helped me write today’s post and — of course! — to YOU. No fooling!
I’m not sure about a lot of things, but I sure appreciate clear instructions about what to do when I’m not sure (like when I’m having another one of those days and I’m not sure exactly where to place the different remnants from my lunch in the hospital cafeteria).
Not sure about the definition of “sure”?
sure
/SHo͝or/
adjective
1. confident in what one thinks or knows; having no doubt that one is right.
“I’m sure I’ve seen that dress before”
synonyms: certain, positive, convinced, definite, confident, decided, assured, secure, satisfied, persuaded, easy in one’s mind, free from doubt
adverb
INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN
1.certainly (used for emphasis).
“Texas sure was a great place to grow up”
I’m not sure whether that’s the best definition of “sure” on the internet, but I put it here anyway.
Not sure about any of my other photos from yesterday?
Michael was not sure if our recently repaired entry-way roof was supposed to look like that, so he called the roofer, who sure came over fast last night to respond to our concerns.
When I’m petty, I feel guilty. When I observe other people being petty, I get scared, because I’ve observed pettiness wreaking havoc with relationships.
Here’s a definition of petty:
pet·ty
/ˈpedē/
adjective
1. of little importance; trivial.
“the petty divisions of party politics”
synonyms: trivial, trifling, minor, small, slight, unimportant, insignificant, inessential, inconsequential, inconsiderable, negligible, paltry, footling, fiddling, niggling, pettifogging, nugatory, of little account
2. of secondary or lesser importance, rank, or scale; minor.
“a petty official”
My personal goal for today is to make other people being petty of little importance, trivial, minor, small, slight, insignificant, inconsequential, and negligible to me.
Reproof should not exhaust its power on petty failings. — Samuel Johnson
More than jealousy or possessiveness pettiness kills love. — Marty Rubin
Don’t be afraid of failure; be afraid of petty success. — Maude Adams
Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out — it’s the grain of sand in your shoe. — Robert Service
The art of giving orders is not to try to rectify the minor blunders and not to be swayed by petty doubts. — Sun Tzu
The constant petty behests of life permit few opportunities for major satisfactions, and when one is offered it should be seized. — Rex Stout
Petty things don’t bother me as much as they used to — Rebecca Lobo
Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day’s receipts. — Sheri S. Tepper
It is better to lose everything you have to keep the balance of justice level, than to live a life of petty privilege devoid of true freedom. — Bryant H. McGill
Beware of those who attribute petty instructions to God. — Abdul Sattar Edhi
A rhetorical question used by a person who feels they are being given less attention or consideration than someone else.
Synonyms: None.
Origin Of ‘What Am I, Chopped Liver?’
The origin of this phrase is not really clear. I have, however, heard of two theories that may indicate how this expression came to be. The first is that liver is not always viewed on the same level as others foods. For example, if a person is cooking a chicken, they’ll oftentimes throwaway the giblets, you know, like the liver or gizzard. Or instead of throwing the giblets away, the person will cook them, not for themselves, but for their pets to eat. Hence, since liver is not usually as desirable to eat as other foods, the expression might spring from such an idea.
Another explanation, as Wikipedia explains, is that “chopped liver was traditionally served as a side dish rather than a main course.” So the idea would be that sometimes, a person might feel like their thoughts or feelings are not being considered as fully as they should, so they feel like they are being treated as if they were a side dish.
Example Sentence(s)
1. Jake, a friend of mine, asked what my sister and I thought of his new clothes, but he seemed to specifically ignore my comments… what am I, chopped liver?
Yesterday, in a therapy session, somebody talked about feeling expendable. When someone labels themselves in a painful way, I write the word up on the board, to get it out of the person’s head and so that we can look at the label with different perspectives, perhaps making the unhelpful label expendable.
A definition of “expendable” may be expendable, but I’m sharing it anyway.
ex·pend·a·ble
/ikˈspendəb(ə)l
adjective
of little significance when compared to an overall purpose, and therefore able to be abandoned.
“the region is expendable in the wider context of national politics”
synonyms: dispensable, able to be sacrificed, replaceable
(of an object) designed to be used only once and then abandoned or destroyed.
“the need for unmanned and expendable launch vehicles”
As I read that definition, it occurs to me that many people might be feeling expendable, as the current U.S. government shutdown drags on and on.
In that therapy session yesterday, I invited the expendable-feeling person to name what is opposite to expendable. Here’s one non-expendable word:
Another opposite-to-expendable word was “valuable.” Apparently a picture of that word was expendable.
Wait! I found “valuable” on this scale, which I drew on the board:
It might be valuable and appreciated, here and now, if I ask my readers these questions: Do you ever feel expendable? Appreciated? Valuable? Where are you on that scale, as you read this? What helps you feel less expendable and more valuable and appreciated?
I wonder if any of the photos in this post are expendable, appreciated, and/or valuable.
It’s always appreciated when my non-expendable boyfriend Michael asks me to dance, and last night, after his very appreciated and valuable dinner (pictured above), we danced to this music, which is the opposite of expendable to me.
I really appreciate that Michael danced with me for the full eight-and-a-half minutes of that highly valued McCoy Tyner tune.
I hope you know that your comments are very valuable and appreciated.
Finally, here is some non-expendable gratitude for all who helped me create this post and — of course! — for YOU.
