Can We Be Kinder?

George Saunders is an award winning writer of short stories and children's books, and a creative writing professor for the MFA program at Syracuse University. His tone is often tragicomic and his work often questions consumerism, corporate culture and the role of mass media. Saunders' satirical tone reminds some readers of Kurt Vonnegut, whose work inspired him. Last year, he gave a well-received commencement speech at Syracuse that has just been released as a short, 64-page book called  Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness (Random House, 2014). It's well worth reading.

Saunders asserts that as a goal in life, we could do worse than to try to be kinder. He recounts how on his biggest regrets so far in life are failures of kindness. In particular, he remembers a girl is seventh grade who was new at school. He wasn't one of the kids who teased her, but he regrets that he didn't do more to stop her suffering. She just moved away. He wishes he did more to stand up for her and be kind.

We remember people who are kind to us. Can you picture the people along your life path who have reached out to you with support, encouragement and kindness? Did it make a difference?

What regrets do you have about not being kind at some time in your life, either through hurting someone else or failing to stand up for someone you could help protect?

Kindness may start out easy, but may require you to speak up, take a stand or do something different.
Kindness can be messy or complicated. It may require you to go out of your way.

Saunders contemplates why we aren't kinder to each other in his book. I liked his ideas. He thinks sometimes we see ourselves as central to the universe, as if our story is the main or only story. (It's not, by the way. Turns out that everyone has their own narrative.) Saunders believes some of us mistakenly believe that we are separate from the universe. Others of us think we are permanent, and will death will never impact us. We actually know on an intellectual basis that all three of these possibilities are not true, but we might like to act like they are.

How can we become more kind, present, loving, open and less self-absorbed?

We can observe our own life history and our own periods of high and low kindness.

We can seek out art, literature, spirituality, meditation, prayer, time with children, or a conversation with a dear friend who is honest with us to reconnect with what really matters.

If all goes well with our development as a human being, we should get kinder as we age and suffer more losses. Hopefully we grow less selfish and more loving, but there is an optional element to this. Aging happens to most people, but emotional maturity is optional.

I highly recommend Congratulations, by the way. It reminds me that the world needs more kind people, probably more than it needs more successful ones.

Difficult Conversations: Let's Be Honest and Direct

Things are so much less complicated and simpler if you are honest in your relationships. Don't wimp out by avoiding difficult but potentially healing conversations. By going direct, you talk with the right person who can potentially do something different in response to your concern. By being indirect and talking with a third party, you triangulate and make any relationship problem more difficult to solve.

In my counseling practice, I often see relationships get damaged when people break trust by not being brave enough to be honest and direct. All grown ups need to develop their courage enough to have difficult conversations that need to happen. While going direct can seem intimidating or scary, it usually works out with a better ending. Being direct, honest, and transparent with those you love makes you respect yourself more, and ultimately shows more care for the other person. It gives them a chance to do things differently with you and perhaps open up with more of their true feelings.

The poet Mark Nepo writes that when we aren't honest it is as if we put on gloves that separate us from the people and events in our life. There is something unnatural coming between us.

When is honesty and directness needed?

• When we are unhappy in a relationship, or feel our most important needs aren't being met.

• When we are hurt by someone's behavior who matters to us.

• When we feel we are being taken for granted.

• When we need to set a limits.

• When we need to do something different.

• When we feel disrespected or misunderstood.

By being honest, we allow the other person to help in making things better, more fun or upgraded between us. It is a shared responsibility to make a relationship vital, engaging and supportive. While it might be scary to be honest, it gives the other person the respect they deserve, a chance to improve things rather than be blind-sided, or just notice that you fade away. Relationships are dynamic and always changing and without healing conversations, the relationship can't grow.

We need to encourage our children to be brave, direct, and honest as well. Whenever possible, help  empower your child to role-play with you, and handle situations directly at school, with family or with friends as it is age appropriate. If you do it for them, they don't get to build their confidence in relationships.

Having the courage to go direct to the person that you have a problem with makes you grow stronger and more confident. As psychologist and writer Barbara De Angelis wrote, "Living with integrity means: not settling for less than what you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values."

In your relationships, whenever possible, go direct and lead with honesty and your true feelings. Being able to master the ability to have difficult conversations with your partner, your parent, your sibling, your close friend or your child is a key skill for building deep lasting relationships. Avoiding difficult conversations causes relationship atrophy and short circuits your emotional growth. Be brave.

Celebrating Mothers (and Others Who Nurture)

There is nothing quite like having a mother or grandmother who loves and supports you. You know they are in your corner. You are certain that they care and want the best for you.

To be a good enough mother, you don't have to be perfect.

Even if you don't get a mother who is loving, life may present you with the opportunity to be that kind of mother yourself, or serve in a supportive 'mothering' role to other young people whose lives touch yours, perhaps as an aunt, a mentor, sister, or friend.

Being a supportive mother takes transcending self and caring as deeply for someone else as you do for yourself.

Mothering takes patience, especially when your child is pushing away from you or testing all the limits at certain developmental points.

Good mothers set limits and boundaries, and set a tone of mutual respect within the family.

Good mothers encourage their children to develop their natural strengths and interests, and try new things. Their belief in us helps us believe in us, too.

Mothering takes endurance and resiliency because there are a lot of days of cooking meals, helping with homework, getting the children up, tucking the children in, meal times, driving to school, sports, and lessons, and a million other little daily routines that are up to you to make happen.

Good mothers teach their children independent living skills all along the growing up years. They foster independence.

Mothers are needed when your child is discouraged, and you try to give them a word of encouragement to pick themselves up and try again.

It is from being loved by mom that many of us learn to attach, love others, and feel safe.

Good enough mothers apologize when they make mistakes. They role model being kind, forgiving others, and forgiving yourself for your imperfections.

Mothers often teach us to recognize our own feelings, and be aware of how our behavior impacts other people's feelings.

Being a mother is a powerful responsibility, and an opportunity to leave the world a better place by the children you leave behind. As Mother's Day approaches, let's honor mothers who made or are making a positive impact, and be aware of the importance of nurturing others when and where we can in each of the lives we each touch. Being a mom can be one of the most meaningful, transformative experiences in your life. It has been for me.

10% Happier

Dan Harris is a reporter for ABC News, and co-hosts the weekend edition of Good Morning America and Nightline. He also just wrote his first book called, "10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story"(HarperCollins, 2014).

Harris is a colorful guy. He is brutally honest about his past drug use, his on-air panic attack, the internal dialogue in his head which keeps making him afraid his career will fall apart and he'll have to move to a flop house in Duluth. He openly admits to having been a jerk at work, throwing papers around, and letting his ego run away with him. He seems competitive in a highly competitive business. He copes with reporting from war zones, not completely understanding the impact it's having on him. In one war zone, shots ring out near him, and his first thought is that he hopes the film crew kept the camera running, because it will be great footage for the news.

He seems like a regular guy, and has a nice self-depreciating sense of humor. He's open about his experiences in therapy. He gets assigned the job of being a spirituality reporter, even though he's an agnostic. He ends up interviewing Christian evangelicals, as well as new-age experts like Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle. On his journey, he also gets to meet and interview his Holiness the Dalai Lama. Next, he meets experts in mindfulness and meditation, including Mark Epstein, M.D., who becomes a mentor and friend.

So what does a skeptical, stressed-out, agnostic reporter do with all this information? He tries out meditation, including a 10 day silent meditation retreat. In a hilarious, self-effacing way, he chronicles his struggles to learn to be mindful, and do meditation and compassion meditation. Amazingly, it helped. Harris learned to calm his 'monkey mind' and be more present. He feels he is 'less of a jerk now', overreacting less. In the process, Harris demystifies the practice of meditation.

I liked that Harris is relatable as an average man, and that he gives us an inside view that makes trying meditation much more simple and inviting. He actually breaks down the basic steps of meditation, into something any of us could do for five minutes a day, sitting quietly and focusing on our breath. He encourages the reader to be more self-accepting and less self-critical. If your mind wanders off, just guide it gently back to the breathing.

"10% Happier" is an easy and fun read. His language can be a little colorful, but his inside view of the television news business, and his skeptic's view of the useful practice of daily meditation to quiet our minds and build compassion is well worth reading. His explanation of the usefulness of learning to detach from outcomes, and ask ourselves "does this really matter?" when we are worked up and upset is something most of us can put right to good use. It might just help us be 10% happier, or even more.

Fathers and Daughters

I see good dads struggle sometimes to stay connected as their sweet little daughters grow up into teenagers and then adult women. You can't tickle her like you might have when she was little, or carry her around on your shoulders. She's probably over board games and throwing the baseball with you by her teen years. Now what? What's a father to do to stay emotionally connected, when he has, of course, never been a young woman himself ?

Sometimes fathers of girls tell me they feel like they are at an unfair advantage, as mothers and daughters may have more same-sex ways to connect with each other, like shopping, cooking, getting nails done, crafts/art, etc. Fathers need to be more creative. Fathers don't often do as much phone contact with daughters as mothers do, or have the same length of conversation. It doesn't mean that your daughter doesn't need you just as much.

Much of being a good father or stepfather has to do with being interested in her, and listening more than you give advice.

It helps her to know that you are there.

Meet her friends when you can. Take the college roommates out with your daughter for a meal.

Be protective.

Express your love for her.

Help with her car. Teach her how to maintain it.

I like to see fathers develop their own relationship with teen or young adult daughters, not hearing news indirectly through mothers.

The good news is that you don't have to figure this out all by yourself. You can ask your daughter what kinds of activities she would be open to doing together with you. She will probably have a lot of good ideas. Daughters are usually touched by dad's interest and concern.

Take an interest in her college and career path. Encourage her to get a part-time job and internships later to build her experience and confidence.

Role model through how you treat the adult women in your life with respect. She's watching.

Teach her life skills, so that she becomes strong and independent.

Teach her about money, and the value of saving it. Help her understand about investing.

Talk with her about choosing relationships that honor her, because she's very important to you.

Point out her strengths.

Daughters need loving, involved fathers. Granddaughters need caring, interested grandfathers. Girls whose mothers remarry need loving, supportive stepfathers. Just because you've never been a young woman doesn't mean you can't try to understand the complexities of emotion that the special young women in your life are experiencing. Transcending self and your own gender role to be a beloved father, grandfather or stepfather might just be one of the very best experiences in your life. It might help you build compassion and understanding for the adult partner in your life as well. Mothers bring children in to the world and nurture them, but fathers have their own irreplaceable role to play taking our children out into the world, develop courage and confidence. You don't have to have been a girl to love one well.

Let's Thrive: Redefining Success

Arianna Huffington, the editor-in-chief at Huffington Post, has a new book called "Thrive" (Harmony, 2014) out this month that is well worth reading. She suggests that money and power are a rather limited way of evaluating one's success in life. Huffington believes we need a third metric which includes creating well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving.

Huffington shares personal stories about growing up in Greece and lessons learned from her mother, who owned little but was extremely generous with others, often giving things to people who complimented them. Her mom also believed in being fully present, never missing an opportunity to interact with a shopkeeper or stranger. She tells some lovely personal stories about learning from her mom about what's truly important in life, all the way up to sharing how her mom died surrounded by family, a final shopping trip to a farmer's market, and sharing good food and wine.

Huffington addresses the issue of burning out at work, something that women are especially prone to. In contrast to "Leaning In" the recent book by Sheryl Sandberg, Huffington suggests that we all begin to intentionally lean out of work and being available 24/7.  She is in a unique position to be aware of the demands of the 24 hour news cycle, and the addictive draw of email, phone contact, and hyper-vigilance to news. She feels we need to feminize the workplace with core beliefs that we don't want to just make it to the top, we want to make the world a better place.

Here are a few of her valuable suggestions:

1. Get more sleep. She feels many of us aren't functioning at our best level because we are tired, hungry or lonely. Adults, teens, and children all get less sleep than they did a generation ago. Try an earlier, and firm bedtime. Try it for a month as she did and see how you feel. Ask family and friends to help you with your goal of getting to sleep earlier.

2. Take breaks. She has a nap room in side the Huffington Post for all the employees, also has healthy snacks there like hummus and carrot sticks. We are more effective at work when we stop for lunch and rest breaks. Perhaps you can get outside the office at lunch.

3. Give your phone a bedtime. Tuck it into a sleeping position early in the evening in a location which is NOT in your bedroom, so you are not tempted to check it during off hours. Could you put it to bed at 7pm? 6pm? Try this one and see if it helps restore you to truly be off. Don't turn it back on immediately when your feet hit the floor in the morning. Give yourself a little time to start your day in your own calming way first.

4. Take real vacations where your phone and email do not go with you.

5. Volunteer and do selfless service. At Huff Post, they pay employees for their time to do a few days of service for a cause they care about every year, but even if you don't, do it anyway. Research shows it makes us happier and helps us avoid burnout.

6. Let's have some silence. It helps us reconnect with ourselves. It quiets and soothes us.

7. Give important people, like your loved ones, your full and undivided attention. It's powerful and rare.

8. Think about the legacy you want to leave behind. This will help you peel back to reveal what really matters in your life and what you are focusing on. Work doesn't love you back. People do.

9. Protect your own emotional capital. Don't be a spend thrift with your time and energy.

10. Stop to experience awe and wonder in your daily life, whether it's noticing the sunset or the sky, a sweet interaction between people, a child's joy, or a tender moment. Savor it. Slow down for a variety of petite happiness.

11. Refuse to multi-task. It's draining, physically, mentally, and emotionally to operate in life with a split screen mentality.

12. Nobody stays on this wise course all the time, so when you veer off, get yourself re-centered again.

I enjoyed Huffington's approachable and open tone. In "Thrive" she is forthcoming about dealing with challenges in her own life and with her adult daughters as they experience difficulties like overcoming substance abuse. She emerges as a likeable, warm, and authentic person who is sharing some of her own life lessons, including about what Huffington calls, "kicking out the obnoxious roommate in her head"(a term for her negative self-talk).

It's too narrow to focus our sights on being a success at work. The real challenge is succeeding at the 30,000 or so days in life we are fortunate enough to have. It's an appealing idea to remake the workplace and our work practices to reflect this third measure of success. We need to shift the definition and the boundaries of what builds success, for ourselves and for the next generation, our children, who follow us.

Aging Parents: Conversations to Have

It's emotionally difficult to watch a parent who you always remember being capable and independent deal with declining health and advancing age. It's a contrast to parenting, where you help someone small and dependent become progressively more independent. In loving an aging parent, we witness a formerly independent person cope with losses of friends, their partner, their vitality and energy, perhaps the ability to continue living in their home alone and their challenge to gracefully accept it all.

In Erik Erikson's life tasks for different life stages, the final stage is called "Integrity vs. Despair". At this stage, people review their life, and try to come to terms with what their contributions have been, and what significance their life has had. Seniors are often coping with chronic or progressive illnesses which may slow them down and consume a great deal of their time trying to cope. Many seniors deal with some depression or anxiety as they age and deal with loss. Support from family and friends makes an incredible difference as to how well aging parents can deal with their daily life.

Many people become just more of whatever their personality was like earlier in life (think sweet, complaining, thoughtful, connected, isolated, demanding, etc.) Many older seniors key in on their daily and weekly routines and structure for feelings of security amidst the changes that are occurring.
This can make them seem rigid to younger family members, but it helps to remember that this is a part of coping for many seniors ( such as' I like to eat at this restaurant', 'I always do these chores at this time of day', set television programming, morning and evening routines that self-comfort).

When I worked years ago for the counseling department of a large, local hospital, I helped families talk through planning for aging parents. I still do in my private practice. Here are some things to consider discussing with your aging parent(s):

1. Most aging parents do better in their own home for as long as possible, with services and care being brought into the home as needed.  These might include housekeeping, a home health aide, meal delivery, a bath aide, companion care and more. What are your parents' preferences when their home is no longer the safest place for them, or their needs are more than can be supplemented at home?

2. Do they have a family-friendly family practice doctor who can be the quarterback as other specialists are needed, and is willing to talk with one family member as the point of contact? If not, help them find one. If you live at a distance, a doctor who is willing to interact by email may be very helpful.

3.Create a central storage place for important documents such as medical records, lists of medications being taken, social security numbers, health insurance policy information and contact numbers, advanced directives for healthcare, etc. Keep a hard copy in two different locations that are fire-proof and water-proof.

4. Ask your parents if they have long-term care insurance. Nursing home care is very expensive and could wipe out their savings, or yours. If your parent is healthy enough to qualify, paying that premium, even yourself, may be a smart option.

5. Discuss finances. Who is the point-of contact relative for financial matters? This individual should have financial power of attorney. They need to know the location of key accounts and policies, and the name and contact information for financial advisors.

6. If you begin to suspect your aging parent is confused, get a medical assessment as soon as possible. You can often begin with their family practice doctor who can refer on to specialists who do neurological testing and assess for memory loss and dementia.

7. Discuss what they want to happen when they die. Would they like to be cremated, or buried? Would they like a service to be held? Would they like donations to go to a favorite charity or cause? These might be difficult conversations to have, but it's essential to knowing what their wishes are.

Being sensitive to all the losses your aging parents are going through will help. Consider how you would feel if you were losing your hearing or sight, your mobility, your friends, your partner, and potentially your ability to live independently in your home. There are lots of adjustments that have to be made along the way. Get a support system for yourself. You might be an only child, but even if you have one or more siblings, the care for aging parents often falls disproportionally on one or two.

Caring for aging parents can be meaningful, and it can be hard, both physically and emotionally. Communicating with your parents about these important concerns will help you move forward to make decisions effectively and thoughtfully as changes occur. Hopefully, when we are the oldest generation, our children will be there for us as we inevitably need them more, too.