More Than the Cards You're Dealt

My high school was built in the middle of a swamp close to that place called nowhere. Seriously. There was nothing around but bulrushes and bugs. A few kilometers up the Trans-Canada highway there was a tiny town with a gas station, a trucker style restaurant, a convenience store, and a church or two. But that was it. I think it was built there so isolation could be used as a means of keeping kids in school.

When you had a spare from classes there wasn’t much to do outside the school. You had to find things to do inside. You could tell who was who based on what they did during their spares. The jocks joined the intramural games and jumped and grunted throughout their spares. The nerdiest geeks hung out in the music room and played Risk or Dungeons and Dragons. The smokers and metal heads hung out in the smoking area and discussed the parties they passed out at last weekend. And the rest of us, those without a label, formed small groups in the main cafeteria playing cards or studying. We did anything to keep our eyes down and our heads low. Best to not make ourselves conspicuous targets. 

I don’t really know how it happened. Somehow in Grade 12 three friends and I started meeting with a teacher on our spare to learn how to play the card game bridge. This teacher was not gregarious so I seriously doubt he was the one who suggested it. But then again, maybe it was him in one of his bellowing bursts when his utterances surprised him as much as the rest of us. He was brilliant but not a conversationalist. Nonetheless, there we all were, four teenage girls sitting in an empty classroom shuffling a deck of cards with an eccentric teacher.

I think he scared us as much as he intrigued us. He wasn't well-dressed or attractive. We did not join him for cards because we had crushes on him. I think we met with him because he let us escape from the glares and stares of others.

Bidding conventions, winning tricks and trump, finesse and card counting - he taught us bridge thirty minutes at a time. We soaked it up as a welcome distraction from our teenage inadequacies and self-loathing. And it also stimulated our busy minds that wanted to race and reason through things but that were slowed by the pace of curriculum, standardized lessons, and angst.

He was not alone in having a passel of students around him. Most of the high school teachers had a crowd of kids that congregated around them during their breaks. I am sure there was a teacher’s lounge where they could have hid out from us but most teachers were found interacting with kids during their spare time too. Some organized the intramural sports, some ran laps on the track, and some joined in the board games in the music room. 

When I look back now I see that these teachers were filling a gap for so many kids. There was nowhere for us to go during our spares at a high school in a swamp. We were apt to get into trouble or ruminate too long on our teenage woes. These teachers provided a stabilizing force. In their presence, we found role models without anyone having to make it so clear.

Our card playing teacher in his awkward gruffness let us know that we could find our way. There was a place for everyone in adulthood and that you could fully be yourself there. But he didn’t have to tell us that. Instead he taught us what a “One Club” bid was, that "third should play high," and how to finesse a few more tricks with a queen. We learned that your life could be more than the cards you were dealt. You just had to know how to play them.
 

There are no Wrong Decisions

Can I come to grips with the thought that "there are no wrong decisions"?

Decisions can be daunting. I know that by making a choice I am saying yes to one thing and no to another. I know that there is really no sure way to know the outcome of each decision. It might go well, better than anticipated. Or it might go terribly wrong, with unseen complications. So I can find myself paralyzed by my decisions and sometimes make no choice at all. 

This paralysis is wrapped up in the fear of making the wrong choice and the worry of having to recover (if I can) from a poor decision. This fear is complicated and multifaceted. I not only fear the outcome of my decision but the potential loss of ‘face’ with my friends, peers, and family. I fear the embarrassment of failure, the humiliation of mistakes, and the shame of not being right. What if I could set this fear aside and what if there was no wrong decision?

My fears cannot prevent a complex, uncertain, and volatile future from happening. Despite all of my best efforts to predict the best decision, there are so many variables and complexities now that I cannot anticipate everything. 

So what if I didn’t try to?

My best solution is to make a decision, any decision, and to constantly correct and adjust as new information and ramifications arise.

I find great solace in the idea that there are no wrong decisions. There is only a choose-your-own adventure quality to life and that I will simply experience a slightly different story line as a result of my choices. Who is to say that the plot of each of those stories is better or worse, right or wrong? 

When presented with an unanticipated consequence of my decision-making I could spend time imagining that the other choice would have been better and would have gone off without a hitch. But there is no certainty in that. In fact, I would argue that it is just as likely that there would have been some unforeseen consequence to that decision as well. 

Instead of imagining that the result of a decision will be a path of perfection and ease, I instead imagine the path will be filled with brambles and obstacles. Opportunities to learn, adjust, and refine. This releases me from the idea that one path would have been perfect. Instead both paths would result in some learning and growing, and neither was ‘right’. Or both were ‘right’.

You see, I believe that life is simply meant as a learning experience. Learning happens in all situations, both positive and negative things that happen. So no matter what choices I make, I will learn something. How then can I be wrong?

And when I cannot imagine that both decisions could be right, I try this framing instead. There is a resulting storyline that will come from every decision. The very best stories told include a hero who is able to recover after a grave error in judgement or a decision gone wrong. So instead of berating myself for my decision, I embrace the storyline I have created and become the hero who overcomes.

A Bus of Kindness

How aware are you of the simple kindnesses that are all around us?

I have just started to ride the bus. I take it two days a week to work downtown with a client. The first morning two parka-clad people greeted me at the bus stop. I am not sure who spoke first but soon we were sharing pleasantries. They wished me well on my first bus ride in many years. Today, my second trip on the bus, the same two people greeted me at our bus stop and immediately the conversation picked up where it left off. It won’t be long I am sure before we truly get to know each other, 5 minutes at a time, waiting for a bus.

But what else struck me as we all rode along to work was the connection I felt to the people on the bus. All of them. We were neighbours. We lived in close enough proximity that we got on the same bus. We were all heading to our work for the day, early in the morning, bleary eyed and bundled up against the cold. We had all left our warm homes and families behind and were heading out into the world to make some money and contribute to society. 

I imagined that I could lean over to any one of them to talk and they would talk back comfortably. I also imagined that if - god-forbid - our bus were to encounter trouble that we would band together and take care of each other. Have you ever really thought about that? So often we look out at a sea of strangers and simply think of them as a crowd; no connection, no humanity, just obstacles in our way. What if instead we each thought of them as our neighbours, or people who would return a favour if we extended one to them? It would be a different world. And when they all got off the bus, in my head I wished them well for the day.

I also witnessed something else extraordinary on the same trip. I was sitting with a woman from the beginning of our ride. We both made busy with our phones and read our way into the downtown core. As the stops began, we both packed up our things and I happened to notice that she had blue bus tickets in her hand. The blue tickets were not the current price and I had a few back home as well. I thought it was odd that she would be holding them in her hand as I didn’t imagine many people would be riding the commuter express bus and then transfer to another bus…and didn’t they have transfers for such a purpose? I leaned over to ask – “I see you have some blue tickets, do you just add some change and when you use them?” She replied that there was a grace period that they would accept them as full fare.

After a stop or two more, the seat in front of us opened up so I shifted there as my stop was going to be one of the last. And she got up as well and sat with a woman in the seat in front of me.

She greeted the woman warmly, and then she passed her the book of bus tickets. The exchange was simple, the price of the tickets fairly nominal but the gratitude the receiving woman expressed told me that it was no small gift. She needed those bus tickets, they would make a difference to her life, and there was not only a wide smile on her face but her shoulders relaxed and a warmth spread between them that even I could feel.

How many things like this happen every day?

Are we paying attention, do we notice when they occur?

Are we the ones bringing them into being?

I hope so.

Hope and Conviction in Tough Times

I’ve been there. That place that just feels like there is nothing worth getting out of bed for. Whether it was because of depression, a lack of purpose, illness, or terrible grief, it immobilized me. I laid there thinking what was the point? Why would I want to put my two feet on the floor let alone shower and get dressed? And yet, most days I did anyway.

You see part of me wanted to wallow in things and just succumb to the feelings that possessed me. It wasn’t easy to be with those hard feelings but it was easier than choosing to move despite the feelings.

There was another part of me though that pushed me. The smallest, quietest part of me, said “come on now, love. Let’s get out of bed. Even if things don’t get better, you’ve given it all you’ve got.” What a wise small voice. 

I think that was the voice of hope. It wasn’t as though that voice said “if you get out of bed things will be better” or “look for the silver lining”. It simply asked me to “show up”, “get dressed”, and “get to action.” It didn’t promise success or happiness. It didn’t promise results. It just asked for effort.

My voice of hope was present even at the very bottom of my well. You could say trite things like “there is only one way to go from the bottom and that is up.” But at that time, I actually wasn’t sure I could survive waiting for the turn around. But hope gently nudged me to at least move.

It was the harder of the two options. Lying in bed would have been easier. 

I think hope knows that aside from sleep, rest, and maybe some healing, nothing of value will find me lying in that bed. Opportunity wasn’t going to come knocking on the door. Maybe support in the form of a friend or family might come alongside my bed but more likely I could go and find that support by rising. Movement was my stake in the ground. Two feet, one in front of the other, was my “fuck you” to depression to say you can get me down but you cannot stop me from taking action.

So when we look around at our world right now and we feel like we are at the bottom of the well, can we find hope? It nudges, it is quiet, but it is not meek. It demands action. Here, in the worst of times, we could resign ourselves, sit in our grief and depression or we can rise, get into motion, and put one foot in front of the other. 

I don’t know what motion might look like for you. Perhaps it is simply keeping your family functioning, perhaps it is marching in protest, or perhaps it is writing letters. But hope is not passive. 

I’d argue against the saying “Hope is not a strategy” and say instead, if you listen to hope you will find a strategy. Maybe we are talking about a different kind of hope – the first is the hope found in “I hope everything works out” and the second hope, the hope I am referring to is “I cannot and will not give up, there is something left here worth striving for”. Very different sentiments and very different outcomes.

I think hope is tethered to conviction. They must be conjoined twins. I think back to when I have tried to accomplish anything that seemed hopeless or impossible. There was first the small voice that asked me to take the baby step of action. Put the sneakers on and go for a walk around the block. But right behind, the boisterous big sister of conviction would barge in and shove the small voice out of the way and say “You’ve got this.” Conviction was the momentum I need for action. It is the energy.

I also think conviction is fear turned inside out. Fear is inaction and resignation but conviction is action and determination. So when I get those tingles of fear down my spine I don’t look first for conviction. I look first for hope. It is tethered to conviction and if I pull the small string of hope, I tug the wire of conviction and the energy begins to flow. 

But again the hope I am talking about is not the pat voice of optimism. Everything might not work out but hope says “try anyway.” 

When you share that type of hope with others you tug on their conviction too. I’m not motivated by the rose-coloured glasses optimist. Sure, they can keep you uplifted when things are going well but when you are staring at the tiniest glimmer of light from the bottom of a well, the voice you will listen to won’t be the one saying “there is a silver lining in this”. You will listen to the one saying “we have to try. Let’s try together.” That taps my conviction. That prods my determination. That unites my efforts with the energy of others.

So in the tough situation we find ourselves in, though I could say “this too shall pass” I cannot be sure that things won’t get worse first. But instead I will say “get to action, find something you can do to make a small difference, or at least at all costs, try.”