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Thursday, January 7, 2010

Happy Gene vs Grim Reaper Gene?


On The Two Whos blog, Cece told a story about her sister Kristen:

“I am Glad You’re not Planning to Die! Thank you!” This was the 2 sentence sarcastic email I received from my sister after she received all 13 pages of my advanced directives, my living will and the “how tos” of fish and cat care. …also my plans for the funeral in case the worst happened in surgery.

You see, my sissy prefers to look on the bright happy side of life. She often says “I like to have denial.” She inherited my mother’s gene in this area of life. The Happy gene!


However, everyone seems to tell my sister about their dying. She told me, “This is the story of my life…including the calls with dad.” She swears that every phone call to my dad, she gets a death reference. So, she gets a lot ‘death reference’ in her conversations. It must be her ultra cheery attitude…The Happiness gene! Could it be that we are all just trying to temper it!


“Why not in denial? Grandma used to make me buy her very small bottles of vitamins because she did not think that she would live long enough to use them all and she did not want to spend money on a bigger bottle….but she made me keep buying the little bottles for years and she kept telling me she was gonna die soon….but she lived well past 100!,” she rants! My sister is on a roll! …..

Me? On the other hand, I inherited my father’s gene in this area of life. My sister calls it “The Grim Reaper” or ”Doom and Gloom” gene. I prefer to say that I see the pothole in the road and make a plan to go around it! I do not think it is doom and gloom…just taking a look at reality and what could possibly happen…and being prepared for it.

Possibly being a Girl Scout all those years taught me to “be prepared” ……but my sister was a Girl Scout too! Go figure! Gene pool?

For whatever reasons that we are different, it matters much less why we are different than the fact that we are different! So, then, does it matter that we see things, even the matters of life and death, differently?

No and yes! Different perspectives are just the way of life in our mind, no matter how we see life, life happens regardless. Like the ‘death’ Cece has been consciously preparing “in case” in past few days, or how her sister has consciously chosen to “have denial”. As long as we are conscious about what we are thinking, perspectives become our choices. When this happens, we can consciously choose the perspectives that serve our life for the better.

The happy happy or the grim reaper? The point here is not which perspective (attitude) is better than the other. Rather, can we see our perspective as perspectives, the product of our thoughts? Do we have the power to choose our perspectives to serve our life? Can we see the other person’s perspective as their perspective?

PS from Cece…as she is editing, she is back from surgery. All is well! Thanks for your well wishes! She developed ” the happy gene ‘ as she read the anesthesia disclaimer…and decided it was better to have denial than to embrace all those scary side effects…including death! She just signed the paper

Monday, January 4, 2010

Pre-Surgery Jitters

On the Two Whos blog , we recently addressed the issues of Re-calibrate our thinking and “outing” our blind spots…both of which have been troublesome issues for me that have come up in the last few weeks! And, it can get interesting when your readers come back at you and effectively “point out” a blind spot that you did not notice!

Lately, I have had the “Poor Mes” re : my upcoming surgery. Lots of fear and resentment that I will once again have to rehab an injury that was not my fault in the first place. Fist my knee was kicked back in karate and then the hit and run accident that is pushing me into surgery on this coming Thursday.

So I emailed my personal trainer/ PT , who is a reader, and asked her for her sage advice on the topics of resentment at having to rehab ONCE AGAIN after I spent the last year doing it! Her repsonse? A KICK ASS REPLY that shook me out of my “victimhood!”


She told me that she had known me for a long time…..that this poor me girl that she was seeing at this moment was not the real me and that I needed to shake that off so that the powerful stong kick ass cyclist named Cece could re-emerge. She reminded me of all my victories over a stupid gym teacher in elementary school and a semi-concsious orthopedic surgeon , lots of weight loss.and yes, even a cycling coach who wanted me to take the easy way out of some serious swithcback climbing…which ….by the way I conquored in a century in Lake Tahoe! She told me that this kick ass Cece is the one that needs to be nourished…not the “Missy Weepy” victim.

Her final comment to me was this ,” I know you asked for my sage wisdom but I think you need to take your own advice and “Re-calibrate!”

And so I have done! I will ROCK this rehab as I have rocked others…with lots of hard work and determination!

Cece