The Hulking Generation Gap

January 9, 2012 | Coleen Patrick

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I were playing a trivia board game with our fifteen year old son. Our son is a bit competitive and usually beats us when it comes to geography and presidential history, but he wasn’t so happy when he pulled this card:

Name a character from Hogan’s Heroes.

“Come on,” he said sounding annoyed. “I don’t watch this reality TV stuff . . .ugh, okay fine, Hulk Hogan.”

An American TV show featuring spandex clad wrestler, Hulk Hogan, in charge of a crew of Allied prisoners in a POW camp?

My husband and I laughed, but it was an honest mistake considering Hogan’s Heroes started airing before we were all born. But the next time we played that game, this card came up:

Name a comic character Johnny Carson played on The Tonight Show.

My son’s response?

“Who’s Johnny Carson?”

It was a little astonishing that he didn’t have any reference for the thirty year host of The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson was such a fixture in my house from the time I was a kid until right before I got married.

Generation Gap: A chasm, amorphously situated in time and space, that separates those who have grown up absurd from those who will, with luck, grow up absurd.

**~Bernard Rosenberg, Dictionary for the Disenchanted, 1972**

You know what else is absurd? My kids don’t know what a library card catalog is . . .

The card catalog and paper–the two things I needed to do a school report when I was a kid. No Google.

And (*sigh*) they don’t even know how to use a cassette tape, the pain of it unraveling, or the power of a pencil in that respect.

Both my kids do however know the 17th century stockade:

Captive in Colonial Williamsburg

This is one way to bridge the generation gap.

However, I am grateful that my kids know not only what a library is, but the feel and smell of actual books. That even though they listen to their music via iPods, I am happy that they know the power of music.

So they may not know the once famous fixtures of bygone decades, but I am glad that they find some significance in their family–at least enough to sit down with them and play a game.

There is nothing wrong with today’s teenager that twenty years won’t cure. ~Author Unknown

What gaps do you see in the generation before or after you?

The Soothing Power of a Smile (and Cupcakes)

January 6, 2012 | Coleen Patrick

Happy Friday!

After a long week filled with lists, goals, resolutions and changes, I am in need of something a little soothing.

Because every now and then you just need something to calm you down, and maybe even make you smile.

So for that, I offer you the obviously underrated, power of a Q-tip.

Have a happy, relaxing weekend!

Good Timing

December 9, 2011 | Coleen Patrick

Happy Friday!

After a week that included a power outage, I fell behind on everything. But I can’t pin all the blame on the thunder storms, because sometimes it’s just my timing.

Do you ever feel like your timing is off?

Have a great weekend!

Questioning the Power of Positivity

November 28, 2011 | Coleen Patrick

This weekend I watched a bit on a news program that questioned the power of positive thinking.

“If things don’t go well, if you get sick, or if you lose your job, or fall into poverty, it must be your fault because you weren’t sending the right thoughts out into the universe,” said Barbara Ehrenreich, a breast cancer survivor and the author of Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America.

According to Ehrenreich, Americans discount reality for “magical thinking,” and she puts her stock in realism, rather than the promotion of positive thinking when it comes to dealing with adversity.

But adversity is a gift, right? We’ve all heard that, but then again some gifts suck.

Remember Ralphie wearing his gift from Aunt Clara in A Christmas Story?

It’s okay to not be okay with what arrives at our doorstep. It’s normal to feel angry, sad or confused. It’s okay to want to cry, even wallow. Our feelings are real, even if you feel like no one else feels the same way.

Ehrenreich mentioned feeling guilty for not feeling the can do positive spirit during her bout with cancer, and she said she was tired of feeling guilty.

And it’s easy to feel guilty if you think you’re supposed to smile over the pain, the depression and the fact that life as you knew it feels over. And even more guilt inducing if you complain only to hear: “I was complaining that I had no shoes till I met a man who had no feet.” (Confucius)

No one should be made to feel guilty about their choice of focus. Your adversity, your choice.

But what is guilt? Could it be something wired in us to perhaps get us to rethink our direction? If we are struggling with our reaction to something, is it because we want to think differently?

There are plenty of people who disagree with Ehrenreich, in fact many say making a plan for hope actually aids in mental healing.

Because there is scientific proof that positivity is helpful. “I think there is a part of attitude that may play a role, and we’re still trying to understand that,” said Dr. Barry Boyd, oncologist and director of nutrition and cancer for the Yale Health System. “Working to build hope and build optimism may, in some individuals, change the biology of their cancer.”

Of course there are experts who disagree. “I think there’s a ton of pressure based on the belief that if they’re positive that they’ll live longer,” said Dr. James Coyne a University of Pennsylvania psychologist. “And then the downside of that is that if they deteriorate and they ultimately die of cancer, that they are somehow left being blamed: If only they had been more positive.”

But positivity is not about denial, but about interpretation. Your feelings are true and you can’t help what you feel, but you can help what you do about those feelings.

Crap happens and no one is immune, but how does staying in the crappy moment of that reality do any good? What is wrong with hope? Why does deciding to focus on the positive equal fantasy?

Positivity isn’t a Pollyanna view. It doesn’t mean ignoring realities or neglecting self-care for good thoughts. There’s a difference between Pollyanna and making a plan for how to live the rest of your life after facing adversity.

Just because you look toward the bright side, doesn’t mean you are blinded from the truth.

I don’t think the power of positive thinking is about living LONGER, it’s about living BETTER.

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. in fact our response is the only thing we control.
In our response lies our growth and freedom.“
– Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

But not everyone believes that, and that is their prerogative. Some find value in cynicism, in much the same way some enjoy their Pollyanna glasses.

“One man’s toxic sludge is another man’s potpourri.” How the Grinch stole Christmas (2000)

In fact while looking at the reviews of several popular self-help books I saw plenty of negative ones that read, a lot of glass half full crap.

Cynical, right? But then again, that person not only read that self help book, but took the time to write a review.

Maybe they didn’t find what they were looking for, but still they were looking for something.

In the meantime, positive thinking is there for the taking.

What do you think about the power of positive thinking?

Dreams and the Depths of Fear

August 31, 2011 | Coleen Patrick

Not long ago I had a dream that really stuck with me. Usually my dreams slip away unnoticed, but not this one.

In it, I was standing on a beach with my son (a much younger version of him). It was nighttime and the waves were numerous and way too big to consider a dip. Well, that and I am scared of the ocean.

It’s more of a yin yang fear and fascination with the ocean (my mom blames Jaws). You see I am curious about it, I find it beautiful (especially those tropical oceans), but for the most part I view the ocean from a distance, or the shoreline. Pictures, TV, movies, books or if I’m lucky a beach towel or hammock are all acceptable vantage points. I will even go on a boat, and if the water is clear enough I may brave a toe dip, but for the most part I fear what lies beneath.

Still, in this dream, the water beckoned and so my son ran to the waves, and immediately they swallowed him up.

Now the water was dark and beyond scary, but when my son made a dive for the water, I had no choice. I didn’t even hesitate. In fact, my fear of the ocean was not even on my mind, not at all.

I followed him, pulled him out and then when he was safely in my arms I stepped back and that’s when I saw them . . .

Whales.

They were everywhere. The moonlight spotlighted them and I saw them breaching the waves, rolling on the water. It was a curious and beautiful sight, and the ocean no longer looked scary.

The dream moved me so much, that I felt compelled to research the significance of whales when I woke up. Captain Ahab aside, I found that whales symbolize motherhood, calmness, the depths of our conscience, and endurance.

Most of all they represent power and strength.

I know that a big part of my fear of the ocean is the unknown, but it’s interesting to think of these amazing creatures swimming beneath. It reminds me that we also hold strength, a power deep within ourselves that is ready when we are to breach our fears, to allow us to do what we want to do despite being afraid. Of course, in my dream, the only thing on my mind was my son’s safety, so it felt like a no-brainer.

But still, I believe that power is within us, swimming in our own depths. I think it’s a matter of making what you want a priority, making your goals a no-brainer in the face of fear.