Crap O’Clock

I am slumped in my comfy chair, still in my jammies with a hot Magic Bag softening my stiff neck and shoulders. A bleary-eyed Ter is nursing the day’s first cup of tea from her corner of the loveseat. Neither of us has the energy for small talk. A mournful wail suddenly wafts up from the lawn beneath our window, wending its way into our living room—it’s the three-year-old downstairs, voicing his displeasure at being dressed and out the door to daycare before seven a.m. on a weekday.

“Suck it up, junior,” I say, bluntly. “Life is hard so you’d better get used to it.”

Cut me some slack, okay? This is the same kid who wakes me from a sound sleep at this same ungodly hour on a Sunday by galloping gaily up and down the hall beneath our suite. Instead of sympathizing, I take a perverse pleasure in him being hauled out the door against his will two days a week when I have to get up and go to work for five. He thinks he’s hard done by now? Wait until he starts school, heh heh.

Yup, it’s a hard life all right. I am not nor ever have been a morning person. I have learned to appreciate the beauty of a sunrise over the ocean or the tranquil solitude of a pre-breakfast flânerie, but overall, I’d rather stay up late than get up early. And I can sympathize with Junior Jinx (as Ter calls him) to some degree: I became “anti-morning” when I started school myself. It’s not that I disliked school (much). I’m generally quite happy when I get to the office, too. It’s the getting up at crap o’clock to go somewhere I’d rather not go that well and truly bites.

I don’t know how my mother did it. She was always the first one up, summer or winter, rain or shine, and breakfast was usually on the hob before she knocked on my door with a cheery, “Wakey, wakey!” or—after my bones kicked in—an even brighter, “Pill time!” Those were bleak mornings for sure. I can’t imagine she liked them any better than I did, but I never saw it.

During a recent work tea with Treena, she reminisced fondly about the idyllic days of childhood. “Do you remember waking up every day, full of excitement and eager to see what adventure awaited?” she asked, wistfully.

I just stared at her, wondering what that must have been like. It seems every morning of my life is met with the question of whether I can do it. Whether I can get up and get going. It was particularly grim when I was younger, but I’ve hated being woken up forever. Sure, I can wake up happy on a weekend, but who doesn’t? It’s a weekend, for Pete’s sake!

Which reminds me: I have to reset the alarm before I go to bed tonight.

Crap.

The Sum of Our Parts

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (or the one).

All for one and one for all.

It’s not the name on the back of the jersey that matters, it’s the crest on the front.

Call me a socialist and you likely won’t be wrong. I am all for sharing the wealth in support of the whole. Everyone has resources. Everyone has a talent. Everyone can—and should—contribute. I’d not presume to dictate comfort zones, but the best thing about humanity is the way we rally to support a person, a family, a community, or a country in need.

There is something to the attitude of putting the good of the group ahead of stardom for one. Take the International Ice Hockey Federation’s 2019 World Cup Junior Champion Team Finland, for instance. Consistently outmanned, outgunned and short-handed in the final against team USA, they stuck together and ground it out to win the gold medal. There were no superstars and no obvious egos in their game. They were just a bunch of young guys doing their best to help each other.

And win a trophy, of course.

Hm. Competitive sports might not be the best example—though sport is supposed to teach kids the value of teamwork. Too often I see pro players either trying to draw a penalty or whining when they get caught themselves. Participant ribbons for all was maybe not a good idea.

I laughed out loud at a commentator remarking on Canuck wonder-rookie Elias Petterson’s understated celebration when he scores a goal. The kid is Swedish. Modesty becomes them. In fact, it’s taught to children in many cultures around the globe. The “modesty lie” is encouraged in some countries—commit a random act of kindness, but don’t take credit for it. I agree with that in part; when asked point blank if I put cookies on the office snack station, I confess because I’m busted. There’s no point in lying when I’ve been naughty, either. (And some would suggest that’s the case when I put cookies on the office snack station.)

But in this magical world of contrast and the human experience, superstars are inevitable. Everyone wants to be special, even in societies where they’re taught to be ordinary—or at least not to be extraordinary. That’s hard for an ego to endure. I get that. I also know that everyone is born special. The best thing anyone can do is be themselves. That’s why we’re all here. Be yourself and be the best at it. As Martin Luther King once said, even if you’re a shrub, be the best darned shrub you can be.

The whole garden will look better.

With love,

Relax Your Face

An old friend once observed that crazy people don’t smile. If that’s so, then the majority of us are bordering on the brink. Pope Francis recommends those who claim to have Jesus in their hearts may want to notify their faces—the same could be said to anyone professing Islamic, Buddhist or otherwise enlightened tendencies. As for smiling faces during the holiday season, yeah, right. I once worked with a kid who said she had the crabbiest customers of the year during her Christmas gig at Starbucks. So much for joy, peace and goodwill to all.

Relax your face. While you’re at it, drop your shoulders and inhale until your ribcage swells—but if that’s too much, just do the face. Do it, ’cause I bet you have no idea how tense your face is, and when it’s tense, it’s probably frowning. Or scowling. Or anxious. One thing is sure: it ain’t smiling.

I’m not suggesting you walk through life with a goofy grin in place. That would be unrealistic, not to mention ridiculous. I am suggesting, however, that a couple of times a day, take a minute to soften the muscles in your face, maybe even conjure a little smile while you’re folding laundry or mixing a batch of muffins. I tried it while disentangling Christmas tree lights and my BP improved in the same instant as my mood.

You must be aware of your face before you can soften it, however, so paying attention is the first step—especially in a neutral position, i.e., when you’re not engaged in some emotional hijinks or concentrating on a math problem. Try it when you’re alone and see for yourself: relaxing your face relaxes everything. It won’t solve your problems, but it softens a resistant stance. You might even feel a little better, too.

How can that be bad?

Attitude Adjustment

It’s often easy to forget my efforts to be Zen in the workplace. I work for government, after all, and if ever a system was designed to drive its employees crazy, government at pretty much every level (municipal, provincial or federal) is it.

The latest WTF? initiative saw the removal of everyone’s deskside garbage cans. The powers above insist that it’s an eco-friendly policy to centralize the office refuse location, but what it means is that, rather than continue with twice-weekly janitorial service, everyone from administrative clerks to executive directors is responsible for transporting their candy wrappers and apple cores to the kitchen (happily—for me—located next to my office).

Anyway, to appease the disgruntled rabble, our branch executive went the extra mile to source inexpensive little desktop bins for everyone on the floor, and the unfortunate employee tasked with distribution found herself faced with the same stupid joke from every workstation she visited.

Including mine.

So when I happened on her in tears later that day, I was appalled that my poor attitude had contributed to making her job harder. She reminded me that I am not responsible for how someone reacts to a comment, and I agree, but it didn’t stop me from regretting my part in the overall drama. It wasn’t her fault that we lost our garbage pickup; she was simply given the impossible job of trying to make it better and nobody, not even I, appreciated her effort.

I thought about it for a couple of days before I worked up the courage to stop by her office and thank her, not for the tiny Starbucks trash bin, but for the gift of witnessing her tears. She started to protest, but I held up a hand to stop her:

“It is never my intention to upset anyone,” I said, “but I realized after the other day that I was taking it all too seriously and my attitude was causing you—who least deserve it—pain. Without that ‘aha’ moment, I’d still be acting like a ratbag, so thank you for allowing me to learn from this experience.”

We all but hugged (neither of us is comfy with raw emotion, especially in the workplace), and we’re back on solid ground. My stuffie, Isbjorn, has appropriated my trash cup for himself, and I am resolved to think twice before the next senseless policy is allowed to alter my attitude with the people I value most.

Wish me luck!

Isbjorn set for winter hibernation