What Are Your Six Things?

Photo by jokerbethyname / Shutterstock Only a fool would not be scared if a rattlesnake suddenly raised its head. That’s a healthy and potentially life-saving reaction. But when I was a child, I was so terrified of snakes around our house in the country that I was often afraid to go outside for days at a time. That is not a healthy reaction.

Photo by NASAThis picture is a NASA photo of Flight Engineer Tim Kopra in 2015, not Chris Hadfield. But it illustrates just how alone you are in space, even if there is another person around to take the picture. Can you imagine suddenly and unexpectedly going blind in this situation?

Photo by Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock Washing your hands in warm, soapy water is the single most effective thing you can do to stay healthier.

This post originally appeared in the Cameron Herald and Thorndale Tribune and on the Hearts, Homes, and Hands blog on 2020-04-17.

Be scared. You can’t help that. But don’t be afraid. Ain’t nothing in the woods going to hurt you unless you corner it, or it smells that you are afraid. A bear or a deer, too, has got to be scared of a coward the same as a brave man has got to be.

—William Faulkner

These are scary times. I’m reminded of a quote from William Faulkner. “Be scared,” he wrote “You can't help that. But don’t be afraid.”

Being scared is a natural reaction to a startling stimulus. It gets your heart beating and your body ready to fight or flee. Being afraid is ongoing. It can lead to complete inaction or worse—self-destructive behaviors.

How can we not be afraid when times are so scary?

Astronaut Chris Hadfield went blind while walking in space. What could be scarier or more frightening than knowing you are alone in the vastness of space and not being able to see how to get back inside the relative safety of your space capsule? Hadfield survived by focusing on the six things he could do to make things better.

I’ll bet we can each find six things we can do to make things better. Here’s my list.

1. My family and I are practicing social distancing and eliminating unnecessary trips to town and stores.

Even at home, we maintain our private spaces and keep our distance. This private distancing can be challenging with seven adults under roof.

2. While hand washing has always been important, my family and I are becoming almost obsessive about it. 

3. I work every day to keep Hearts, Homes, and Hands able to provide essential the services—like grocery shopping or help with housecleaning—that keep our clients safe and healthy.

We also work very hard to protect our employees. Kathleen and I reached out to every outlet we could find to get adequate protective gear for our employees when that gear became unavailable through our usual suppliers.

4. Every morning and every evening just before bed, I journal about things I am grateful for.

This practice keeps me focused on what is going right in my life and away from the spiraling cesspool of negativity that seems determined to drag us all down. We don’t control what happens, but we can control how we react to it.

5. I cut my own hair the other day.

Even if hair salons were open, I would not have risked my own health, nor the health of my clients and those I love, for simple vanity. And it didn’t turn out badly. Not like it could have. Not like it did when I was six.

6. Finally, I keep in mind that there is no problem so bad I can’t make it worse.

There are four items on my list that can move directly to yours. But really think about that last one. Social distancing works. It has kept the spread of the disease way down in Milam County, and it has helped keep the outbreak manageable in other parts of the country. Let’s not make the problem worse by taking unnecessary risks or getting out and about too soon.

We will all be happier and healthier if we focus on what we can do to make things better.

Focus on What We Can Do

Kathleen wears one of Lori’s mask Creations.

This post was republished on the Hearts, Homes, and Hands blog on 2020-04-13.

Flesh and blood it turns to dust

Scatters in the wind

Love is all that matters in the end

—Robert Earl Keen

Each day brings us new opportunities and challenges—often cross-dressing as one another. Challenges can appear like opportunity to the unwary. That’s why many business people say their best deals are the ones they walk away from. Opportunities usually appear as challenges. That lead Thomas Edison to say, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

The truth is almost any situation can be an opportunity or a challenge, depending on how you choose to perceive it. I wanted to write today about how people are turning shelter in place—it sounds friendlier if we turn it into an acronym: SIP—into opportunities.

I’ll start with my partner at Hearts, Homes, and Hands, Kathleen Caso. For most of her career, Kathleen has worked to overcome isolation in our clients. Under SIP, isolation has become a benefit that helps our clients stay alive and healthy. “We’re doing more shopping for them, and I’m even teaching some of them how to order what they need online.” She said it’s been a real change in mindset.

Almost any challenge can be turned into an opportunity. Let’s keep looking for the opportunities and moving out of the darkness. Wendy rendering courtesy of Bob the Builder

Lori Vega saw an opportunity in the shortage of masks. Many of you know Lori from her sewing and alterations business, Vega Creations. Lori now makes masks to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community. Hearts, Homes, and Hands has taken delivery of two shipments to help protect both our clients and our caregivers.

Local attorney Kayla Chandler has been doing video chats because they add more face-to-face contact than just talking on the phone and still help with social distancing. “Video chats are always fun because when one dog starts barking, they all go nuts and we have a good laugh.” She and Matt also planted a garden with veggies and fruit tress. I would say it reminds me of the old Victory Gardens, but then I’d have to admit I’m old enough to remember them.

I heard one podcaster with a good idea. He said, “I don’t have to teach anyone to use Zoom when I interview them.” Everyone has already learned it in the last couple of months. Like Kayla said, Zoom and other video chat software are a good way to feel more connected while maintaining a safe social distance.

Let’s keep looking for the opportunities and moving out of the darkness. We can keep moving forward regardless economic challenges and social distancing. The question to ask is, “What can I do?” Not, “What can I do?” If we focus on what we can do, we’ll see opportunities abound.

Meaningful Work

Even if it feels like we are all flying alone, we are all interconnected. No one is an island. Rendering by Dr. Norbert Lange
Shutterstock

This post originally appeared on the Hearts, Homes, and Hands blog on 2020-04-02 (with different art).

No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

—John Donne

One of the things that adds meaning to our lives is doing work that we think is important in some way. Work that helps others, that saves lives, that somehow makes our communities better. That’s one reason I started Hearts, Homes, and Hands instead of just retiring to my ranch. I wanted to continue to make a difference in people’s lives.

But many of us are in jobs that we don’t think of as meaningful. They feel enclosing like we are drowning in drudgery. They give us a pay check but little else.

The Shelter in Place order and the COVID-19 outbreak gives us a chance to rethink how we feel about our jobs and find the meaning that was really hiding there all along.

When I worked as a fast-food cook in high school, I never thought it was an important community service. Compared to being a nurse or a lawyer or a cop, it was almost embarrassing. Sure, flipping burgers put a few bucks in my pocket, but it did nothing else to make me feel good about myself.

Truckers lead mostly solitary lives, but modern society would not function without them. Photo by MNBB Studio
Shutterstock

But look at that job today. The government has literally defined it as essential to the community. Fry cooks and servers turn out to be more important to the world than we—even those of us who have worked as such—ever thought. They feed hungry people. They help keep the cops on the street and the healthcare workers tending the sick.

There are other examples of invisible, under appreciated jobs that are essential to society. Without stockers, grocery store shelves would be barren. Without truck drivers risking their lives to drive through and even into hot spots, there would be nothing for those stockers to put on the shelves. Without warehousers, consolidators, and packagers, those drivers would not be able to deliver our necessities to the stores or directly to our houses. And without factory workers and farmers, there would be nothing to deliver.

But even those without “essential” jobs may be doing important, meaningful work. So, take a minute and look at what you do. I’ll bet in some way, it improves someone’s life somehow.

We have a moment now to think about our lives. Let’s figure out how we make the world a better place. And if it turns out we don’t, let’s figure out how we can.

We are all connected. If we can each improve the life of one person—make one person laugh, make one person smile, or just ease one person’s pain—we are all better for it.