Mara here:
Yesterday I had a photoshoot with a young actor. I was taking "headshots," which means we spent a good amount of time together. It can be awkward for actors, and it's part of my job as a photographer to make them comfortable. So there's a lot of small talk.
We chatted about where he was from since most actors are not from Los Angeles (he's recently moved here from Philadelphia), and what he thinks of living here. About a half hour into the shoot he said: "Your house is really nice. I think it's really pretty. I meant to tell you that when I got here."
My immediate reaction was: "Really? It's old; we have so much we need to do to it." Then I went on with my usual spiel about how it's probably a tear down for new buyers and we're not sure if it's worth trying to fix up.
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I realized I was doing the exact thing I've recently been working on not doing: arguing with people who compliment me.
I'm particularly bad about having negative words about our house, which is unfortunate because I love our house. I appreciate that our little house has never leaked and rarely loses power. That makes me feel happy and safe.
But it is kind of "The Little House That Could." It's small. It's old.
When we moved into the house 14 years ago we: a) never imagined we'd still be in the house 14 years later; and b) assumed we would make lots of improvements to the house.
This is an assumption made by many first-time home buyers.
Before you own a home, you don't realize how much work is involved in doing anything "house" related. And you definitely don't realize how expensive everything is. Ignorance is bliss. So when we were looking at houses, we assumed that we would constantly be making improvements. We assumed we would just add on if we wanted.
It's 14 years later and very little has been done to the house that didn't have to be done. We did do a few little improvements about five years after we moved in, but all the other work on the house has mainly been because something broke.
There are definitely some things we feel as if we probably should do, like repaint the exterior.
But there's a lot we could do with the money that would be required to paint the house. Not to mention the effort required to find companies to do it, get estimates, then prepare the house for painting...just thinking about it is making me want to do something else immediately.
And we feel a bit guilty about it.
But not because we're unhappy about the house. We just feel as if other people are probably thinking we should be doing things to the house.
I'm pretty much mentally prepared to apologize for the state of our house at all times. So when this nice young man had the audacity to sincerely compliment me on the house, I was ready to just brush his words aside and explain to him why he was wrong.
Then in the middle of my explaining that the house needs painting, the windows need replacing, and how we really should have added on—I stopped myself.
I was reminded of something my daughter used to say to me when we were arguing when she was a toddler: "Your mind is not my mind!"
Honestly, that's the most little Buddha moment Malia has ever had. It was so simple and so true. My mind is not her mind. The things I was saying and thinking were not the things she was thinking. All that arguing I wanted to do to convince her that my thoughts should be her thoughts and there she was, reminding me that they weren't. In that moment she was a little Buddha—an angry little Buddha—but speaking the truth nonetheless.
Her words have stuck with me. We often joke about it, and she still says it when she wants to tease me about trying to convince her that my way is better than her way. But it is the truth. The way that I think about things, no matter how strongly I feel about it, is not necessarily the way other people feel.
So I've been making an effort. When people compliment me about something, instead of telling them why they're wrong, I've been trying to train myself to just say, "Thank you."
I'm only successful about 10% of the time. And clearly yesterday was one of the other 90% times because a flood of word vomit about why our house wasn't nice or pretty exploded out of my mouth.
And then I felt bad. I felt bad because he had been so sincere. And I don't really know this kid—I have no idea what circumstances he comes from. I had to mentally slap some perspective back into my head.
Yes, by fancy Los Angeles standards our house is small and old. But for the other 99.9% of the world, it's a really nice house. For many people, our house would be considered luxurious. And even if it's not a nice house, we enjoy the house. The house has been a great home. I don't need to apologize for our house.
And maybe this young man didn't actually think the house was amazing, but he was trying to be polite. I should have just let him be nice. And I shouldn't have felt as if I needed to apologize for something that I'm fine with—even if I think other people are not fine with it.
So I will continue to work on letting people have their own minds. I will continue to let people say what they want to say without making sure they know I don't agree with them. I will try to have perspective and work on seeing things through other people's eyes.
My mind is not anyone else's mind.
***
I asked my mom about this:
Is there a Buddhist teaching about having differing opinions and perceptions? Do you have a favorite mantra that could help me remember to accept how other people feel?
First of all, Mara, that's a great story. I think there are lots of people who dismiss and even dispute people's compliments about them (or their houses!). I love that you're training yourself to just say, "Thank you." I've been doing that too when people tell me I look good. I want to say, "Well I feel sick. I've been sick for 17 years." But I've realized that they're just trying to be nice and so, just like you, I'm training myself to respond by just saying, "Thank you."
About the Buddha's teachings. In one of his discourses called the Sutta Nipata, he talks about quarrels and disputes and says that he teaches a dharma that doesn't contend with anyone.
He then goes on to say that people who are attached to their views and opinions usually go around annoying others. I've always loved this line. I sure find it annoying when people are attached to their opinions and want to argue about everything.
You asked about a mantra, which is one reason I raise this discourse from the Buddha. I've taken on as a kind of mantra the idea to remind myself to live in a way that does not contend with anyone.
When I don't contend—that is, when I'm not attached to my views and opinions—I feel better emotionally. It doesn't mean I'm indifferent. There's a lot about the world I'd like to change and I do what I can to change it. But I try to do without contending with others.
So that's my mantra, straight from the Buddha: Do not contend with anyone.
Mara here:
I got a tooth implant this year.
This might not sound like a big deal, but it was a five year process. Yes, five years.
Actually, it's more of a lifetime of dealing with teeth that I sometimes feel are purposely trying to make my life more complicated, even though I know logically that teeth don't have free will.
But it still feels that way to me.
If you are a person who doesn't think very much about your teeth, I envy you.
Regular readers of the blog already know that my teeth are not my strongest feature. Ever since I can remember, my teeth have been poorly formed and tend to fail on a regular basis. In the back of my mind, I know at all times I should probably be at the dentist's office.
It started as a young child when my adult teeth grew in with cavities. While I'm sure he was not actually an evil person, my local dentist tortured me with hours of painful procedures as he put in two, three, four or more fillings with each visit. Every one of my molars had cavities.
This of course led to me having a fear of dentists and made it so that as soon as I became old enough, I just stopped going unless I was in pain.
So the drama-filled relationship with my teeth has been long and steady.
About six years ago, I noticed a lump on my gum. Me being me, I just sort of ignored it. It kind of looked like a zit. I have super sensitive skin, so I often get sores in my mouth. I have ever since I was a kid.
The lump on my gum would disappear and reappear. It wasn't solid. I could push on it.
At the time, I was in the middle of travelling pretty much non-stop with my daughter. I didn't have the energy to have my gum investigated, especially since (and this is the important part) nothing was hurting. At one point, I pushed on the little lump and it felt like it popped and then disappeared. Oh good.
Fast forward a year. We had just returned from being out of town for three months. We had a short three-week stay at home before we would be leaving for Japan for another month long trip, but in the meantime my daughter had dance conventions out of town that we had to attend.
About a week after we returned, one of my teeth started hurting. I know from past experience, once tooth pain starts, it's important to get to the dentist quickly. I reluctantly made an appointment with a dentist.
Since I hadn't been to the dentist in a while, it was a dentist I had never seen before. My mode of picking dentists is to look at the list of dentists covered by our insurance and pick the one who's closet to my house.
I remember the appointment was on a Friday morning. I fit it in between driving my daughter to her homeschool teacher appointment (an hour each way from our house) and then having to pack for leaving for the weekend for a dance convention in Orange County (which turned out to be a three hour drive on a Friday night).
I won't bore you with the details of my dental visit. I will cut to the chase: my back molar had to have an emergency root canal and the tooth in front of that molar had to be pulled because it turns out that the little lump in my gum was actually the root of my tooth and when I had felt that pop, it was my tooth's root breaking. The tooth was dead.
Um, what? You're pulling my tooth out?
The visit was a whirlwind of major dental activity, and the dentist, while perfectly competent, didn't have a particularly friendly bedside manner. I remember sitting wide-eyed as, first, he went over all the tooth replacement options for the tooth that was pulled and then talked about the procedure I'd likely have to have on the tooth that had just had the root canal since my teeth are small and there was not enough tooth, meaning he'd have to cut down the gum. (Excuse me? Cut my gum?)
He was speaking fast, and I wasn't really absorbing what he was saying. My shocked mind translated his words into: It's going to be super expensive and very painful.
I'm pretty sure that's when I sort of mentally shut down. I simply could not process any more information. I nodded my head, explained that I was about to go out of town for four months so could he sort of just patch me up and I would deal with it when I got back?
He did just that. He put an extra sturdy temporary crown on the root-canaled tooth, sent me over to the oral surgeon who pulled the other tooth (oddly, a fast and cheap procedure), and sent me home with lots of instructions about what I was supposed to do when I returned from my trip.
I wandered out of the office after three hours, numb: numb mouth and numb mind.
I'm not sure how I made it through the dance convention that weekend. If you don't know what a dance competition is like, I will sum it up with: loud and exhausting. It's 72 hours straight of loud music and of dealing with kids and their parents. It's 17-hour days and, if you're lucky, five or six hours of sleep. It's chaos.
I think I just went into war-zone mode. I'm not trying to make light of what an actual war experience would be like, but I just mean that I hunkered down and got through it. I don't remember it. And people I've asked said they didn't realize anything was wrong. (Part of that is because I didn't really know how to tell people I'd just had a tooth pulled.)
When we're kids, parents (and dentists) make a big deal about "adult" teeth. There's an emphasis put on how they're permanent—they're forever.
Forever...that is, until they're pulled out.
Losing one of my teeth was scary. I felt as if I was missing part of myself. I felt on the shallowest of levels that I had failed an aspect of being an adult because one of my "permanent" teeth was no longer there.
So I didn't talk about it. I shoved some gauze in my mouth, kept my head down, and wore a scarf to cover my swollen jaw. I took copious amounts of Advil and got through the dance convention weekend.
A couple of weeks later, we were gone on another set of trips for four months and, not surprisingly, I didn't go back to the dentist when we returned later that year.
In fact, I never went back to that dentist.
Fast forward three years.
My "temporary" crown finally dissolved. (Although props to that dentist who definitely put an extremely sturdy temporary crown on.) I had to finally deal with the tooth that had the root canal. This led to pretty much two years of dealing with teeth that were literally crumbling out of my mouth. After two years of working with a dentist who I've come to trust, I finally dealt with my missing tooth.
The missing tooth had been weighing on my mind because somewhere, in all the information that the original dentist had spewed at me that awful Friday afternoon, was the fact that the jaw bone, without a tooth, will deteriorate. If you wait too long to replace a tooth, you wind up needing bone grafts which definitely sound more painful and more expensive.
So, I finally made the jump and initiated the process of doing the tooth implant.
And honestly, after five years of fretting about it, it wasn't really that big a deal.
Was it painful? Yes. Was it expensive? Extremely. But it wasn't as painful, complicated, or expensive as I had built it up to be in my mind. My mind had completely turned getting a tooth implant into a fictional monumental event, preventing me for many years from dealing with the reality of it. I had created a million scenarios in my mind why I shouldn't or couldn't do it.
And the reality was, as is often the case, not as complicated as I imagined it.
But what really surprised me was that while I never completely got used to the feeling of my missing tooth, suddenly having a tooth back in my mouth felt even more strange.
All of the teeth around the missing tooth had had dental work done on them. So when the implant was finally in, my mouth felt so strange. It reminded me of what it felt like when I had a retainer. All the teeth around the new tooth were sore. In fact, all the teeth were sore. There were a million little adjustments being made.
And I'm particularly sensitive, so I could feel the teeth around my new tooth moving. They felt loose. I could feel them wiggling ever so slightly. In addition, it was painful to chew on that side of my mouth. I hadn't properly chewed on the right side of my mouth for five years. Five years of crowns and fillings that had never really been tested.
So I continued to not use that side of my mouth. I would tentatively take a couple chews on the right side, confirm it was still painful, and then return to chewing on the other side of my mouth.
A week later, while flossing on the trusty left side of my mouth, my floss got stuck. And as I pulled on it, I felt something cave. Was it part of my tooth? Was it a filling? I wasn't sure.
I gently probed the tooth with my tongue, there was definitely a gaping hole where there had not been one previously. There wasn't any pain, fortunately, but I couldn't believe it.
I had just completed the process of the tooth implant. My dental insurance was maxed out, and my mental dental capacity was beyond maxed out.
The old me would probably have ignored it. But the new me, the older and wiser me, the me with a dentist whom I knew and trusted, decided not to be an idiot, so I called and made an appointment.
I had a failed filling. One of the fillings that my childhood dentist had painfully inserted decades before had collapsed.
So the filling had to be removed and replaced.
This meant I couldn't chew on the left side of my mouth.
This meant I had to chew on the right side of my mouth—the new tooth side of my mouth. The side where things still felt really weird, and it still hurt to bite down on things.
I seriously thought about just drinking liquids for two weeks. But then I decided to not be stubborn.
After every dental procedure, I've found that it takes a while before the new part of my mouth adjusts. If I have a new crown, the crown always feels wrong for a couple of days. It always takes a while for the rest of my mouth to accept the new part. I'm not sure if it's because things need to adjust physically or if it's that mentally, my mind has to adjust to accepting the new addition.
During the two week period while I had to wait for my new filling to arrive (they're like crowns now, porcelain and created in a lab) I slowly re-learned how to chew on the right side of my mouth. My teeth felt fragile. I felt like every time I bit down that something would break. (Honestly this has happened so it's not just me being afraid.) But day-by-day, my teeth slowly moved and adjusted. And my mind accepted the changes and adjusted.
And it made me realize how much I had adjusted during the years of my missing tooth—only chewing on the left side of my mouth. I remember how awkward it felt having a big gaping hole on the right side of my mouth. I remember adjusting to the fact that when I brushed my teeth, there was a place where I could feel the brush against my gums.
I remembered building up the courage to finally just tell people I'd had a tooth pulled. I remembered when I first visited my current dentist and felt embarrassed explaining that I was missing a tooth. I remembered when I'd had the tooth above my missing tooth crowned and wondering how they could do that without a bottom tooth. There had been so many changes between the time my tooth was pulled and when I had the new one implanted.
And every time, my mouth and my mind adjusted.
Sure enough, slowly but surely the pain decreased on the right side of my mouth. My teeth stopped moving and seemed sturdy. And even more slowly my mind adjusted. I re-learned to trust the right side of my mouth.
So here I am—for the first time in five years, the teeth on both sides of my mouth are functional. And for the first time in five years there's no pain.
Have you had similar experiences of avoiding something because mentally you simply didn't want to have to deal with it?
I've done that too many times to count. I'm still doing it. I try to deal with it by taking a small stickie, writing those "have to's" on it, and putting it on my laptop. This forces me to stare at the stuff I don't want to deal with until I finally do deal with it. My reward is that, with great gusto, I get to cross it off that "stickie list."
My fear of dentists is mostly mental. Is there a Buddhist teaching for people to overcome mental blocks they have?
I'd say that teaching is found in the Buddha's first noble truth, which points out that there's no way around it: life is going to include unpleasant experiences. In the new edition of my book, How to Be Sick, I've named it "The Buddha's List," and getting what we don't want is one of the things on that list. The condition of your teeth is definitely something you didn't want for yourself and I didn't want for you.
I've found that learning to accept that life will contain its share of experiences I'd rather not have makes things easier mentally because it keeps me from adding anger and resentment into the mix, which only makes me feel worse. If life is inevitably going to be unpleasant at times, stewing in resentment and anger over a particular unpleasant occurrence is a waste of energy because it doesn't change things. Sometimes I say to myself that I know I don't want to do something but I have to (often for my health and safety). Then, mental block or not, I forge ahead and try not to add those painful emotions, such as resentment, to the mix.
I'm so sorry about your teeth Mara. They've always been a problem. I had no idea it would continue into your adult life as it has.
Mara here:
I went on a trip last weekend. It was a trip to Manhattan to drop my daughter off at a summer program at Columbia University, and then I was going to take the train north to visit some friends for a couple of days.
Travelling for me is always a mixed bag of emotions. I enjoy being in different places, but the actual experience of going places causes me a lot of anxiety.
So I did what I normally do which is pack carefully and try to anticipate the unexpected and try not to think about the trip very much. If I just "do" instead of "think" then things tend to go more smoothly.
The first 20 hours of the trip went smoothly. We got into Manhattan, got to our hotel, woke up the next morning and got Malia checked into her program. Then I met a friend for a drink before getting on the train.
Easy peasy.
Fast forward to 24 hours later. I am lost in a field, my face is covered in hives, and my daughter is on a train to meet me because she's decided not to do the program at Columbia and is coming home with me.
Whaaaaat?
My friend and I had gone on a hike the morning after I arrived at their house and we somehow took a wrong turn and ended up in a field. This might have been because at the time my daughter was frantically texting me about how she didn't want to stay for the program at Columbia. She was going to withdraw which meant she needed me to either come meet her back in Manhattan or she would come to me. We decided that she should get on the train and meet me at our friend's house, but trying to explain to a teenager how to navigate Grand Central Station when she's never been there before isn't easy. So perhaps I wasn't completely paying attention to where I was going.
The hives had started earlier that morning. But as the day went on, my face got more and more bumpy and itchy. I was slathering on Cortisone cream and taking Benadryl, but new patches of rough bumps were popping up by the minute.
Fast forward another 24 hours and my daughter is home in Los Angeles and my husband is driving me to Urgent Care because, when I got off the plane at LAX he took one look at my patchy red face and said, "Oh honey, I think you need to go to the doctor."
Ughhhhhhh! I had spent the entire trip telling myself that the hives weren't very bad. I was hoping I would land at home and they would miraculously just be better. But apparently not.
I can't fault him for his concern. This isn't the first time that I have been struck with medical problems on a trip. During a trip to Reno, I got a UTI which required an immediate trip to Urgent Care when we got home. On a trip to New York City, I had a tooth abscess which required an immediate trip to the dentist upon our return. And worst of all, on a visit to my parents' house, I broke out in a massive case of hives all over my body, in which I was actually going to into anaphylactic shock and required an immediate trip to the emergency room because my tongue and throat were swelling.
Back to this week. As I was sitting in Urgent Care waiting to be seen by a doctor, I thought about the past 72 hours wondering what had happened. And really, my only conclusion was life happened.
Almost nothing about the weekend had gone the way I'd planned it. And the end result was not a scenario that had ever even entered my thoughts. I had thought about delayed flights, getting lost, forgetting to pack things, and bad weather. But I had not thought about ending up flying back home with my daughter (who was supposed to be staying in New York for three weeks) and a bad case of hives.
There was a large part of me that wanted to be mad. My inner toddler wanted to throw a tantrum because things just weren't supposed to end this way. But I'm not a toddler anymore, and I was too tired to be anything but happy I was home.
And I realized that regardless of what had happened, everything was fine. I was going to get better (thank you wizards of science and medicine) and my daughter was home and safe. All the other stuff was not that important.
It was another great reminder from the universe that you can plan all you want but, in the end, you can't control what happens. Because usually when you start to think that you know exactly how things are going to happen...life happens. And life is unpredictable. Life is messy. Life is frustrating.
Life is also beautiful and exciting and wonderful.
And life reminded me of all that this past weekend.
As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."
Here are two questions I asked my Mom on this subject:
On your trip to Paris in 2001, when you initially got sick, how did you handle the disappointment of the trip not going the way you'd planned?
That's an interesting question because, of course, I had no idea at the time that I wouldn't recover. And so, I've never really thought about how I handled the disappointment of getting what I thought was just an acute illness.
I was mostly disappointed that I couldn't keep your Dad company in Paris. He'd get up in the morning, go out somewhere, come back at noon to see if I was any better, and then go out again. For some people, this would be okay, but he doesn't really like seeing things by himself. Yes, he went to the Louvre, but he didn't really enjoy it.
On the whole, I was able to handle the disappointment of missing what I'd so carefully planned for. I loved to look at guide books and pick interesting places to see. I even had us going to the famous cemetery where famous authors and musicians like Jim Morrison are buried (his tomb having been made into some kind of shrine by fans). So I had a list of 20 or so places to go and things to do. People who've read How to Be Sick know that I did two things: went to the British Hospital to see a doctor and tried going to the Musee D'Orsay, which was a bit of a disaster.
But I was able to put it in perspective as you've been able to do with your trip to New York. I knew I'd come home to a house I love and to a job I love (the latter turning out to be short-lived due to the illness). My two children were happily married. All in all, life was good and so I could accept those "lost" three weeks. Little did I know they'd extent until now, over 17 years later.
What is the Buddhist teaching for accepting that things are not always going to go the way we hope and plan for?
Mara, that IS the Buddha's teaching—accepting that things are not always going to go the way we hope and plan for. You illustrated so well how you pulled that off as you were describing how you dealt with the craziness and stress of last week which, as you point out, can happen because of the utter unpredictability of our lives.
I've been re-reading one of the first Buddhist books I owned. It's by Charlotte Joko Beck and this quotation struck me: "The only thing you can rely on is life being as it is."
She emphasized "only thing" several times. If I could accept this—that is, "live it" 24/7—my life would be much easier—more calm, less complaining, more gentle. I've found that being mindful (that is: paying attention) of what I'm thinking helps me get to acceptance because it's only when I see all the ways in which I'm not accepting life being as it is that I can see the mental suffering and misery that goes along with that. That's my incentive to move toward acceptance.
Mara, from your piece, I see that you've experienced the peace (even if it's just muscles relaxing) that comes with acceptance—true acceptance, not a cynical whatever—even when it can be a bumpy ride to get there. I'm so grateful that you can get there. It's a gift.
Mara here:
So after last weeks rather weighty article, I thought this week we would lighten the mood and focus on what gives us pleasure.
What do you do to do for fun? What do you enjoy that allows you to escape the everyday world?
There are a lot of things I enjoy doing, like jogging or reading, but I don't consider them escapes. Jogging is usually a time for me to sort through some of the thoughts that get clogged up in my brain and, while I love reading, I don't usually get completely lost in my experience because I'm easily distracted by my surroundings.
For me, the most reliable way for me to escape for a couple hours is to go to movies. And it has to be going to movies at the movie theater. I love watching movies at home, but it's not the same. For me, there's something magical about sitting in a dark room with a bunch of strangers and we all go on an adventure together for a couple of hours. The screen is big and the volume is loud; all thoughts of whatever is going on outside the theater disappear, and you just get to sit back and enjoy the show.
I'm a fidgety person, so if given the chance, I tend to get easily distracted. Watching movies at home, I get up and get drinks or go to the bathroom a lot. But in the theater, I'm trapped into sitting and letting go of what my immediate wants are and allowing the experience to happen.
And going to the movies still feels like a treat to me. After over 30 years of movie-going, it still feels special to go to the movie theater, buy some popcorn and sit in the big theater and get engulfed by the story.
And while I love all types of movies, for just pure escape and fun I usually like action films, like the Marvel superhero ones. I also really like action/adventure movies like the Jurassic Park franchise. And I always love a good comedy. Some scary movies fall under the escape category for me, but if they're too gory then I find them too stressful to watch.
And while I do appreciate movies that tackle complicated subjects or that are masterpieces of filmmaking, I don't always consider them an escape. I've watched a lot of movies that were considered "good" movies, but they weren't "fun" to watch. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri is an example of that kind of movie. It was a great movie. And it was very well made—the acting and directing were outstanding. But it was a weighty subject and coming out of the theater, I felt mentally worn out watching it. Schindler's List is another example. It's probably one of my favorite movies, but I can't say it was an escape to go see.
For fun, I want a story I can just simply enjoy without my anxious mind getting weighted down with worries.
Some movies that come to mind for me that provided that perfect escape as I watched them were: Elf, Wonder Woman, Oceans 11 (the Steven Soderburgh version), Trainwreck, Anchorman, Bridesmaids, the Harry Potter franchise, Edge of Seventeen, Mission Impossible (any of the ones with Tom Cruise), The Conjuring, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey, Jr., and most recently, Hereditary.
So you can see that a pretty wide variety of movies fall under my escape and fun category. It's not as much about the genre but it's the feeling I have when I walk out of the movie. If I can walk out of the movie and feel happier than when I walked in, then it was escape.
And again, it's not about what my "favorite" movies are. A lot of my favorites were movies that were very thought provoking or sad. And while those movies are experiences that I think are important, they aren't escape.
Toni here:
Because I'm mostly housebound, I escape with movies that I watch on TV (I used to love going to the movies!) and I escape with one particular audiobook series.
One favorite "escape" was watching a great romantic comedy, but they don't seem to make ones I like anymore. It feels as if they find two attractive stars and think that's all they need for good box-office sales, and so they don't bother with finding a good script; so mostly I find them dumb to watch.
Here are some oldie but goodie romantic comedies that I'm always willing to escape with: French Kiss, Groundhog Day, You've Got Mail, Green Card, Sense and Sensibility. I also love the "mockumentaries" (as they're called) made by Christopher Guest: Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration.
And there are some Woody Allen movies (not all of which are comedies...and not of which are the critic's favorites) that I've probably watched a dozen times each over the years. I'm willing to escape from my day-to-day troubles with these movies anytime: Radio Days, Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Bullets Over Broadway, Hannah and Her Sisters, Small Time Crooks, Scoop, Blue Jazmine, Match Point, Midnight in Paris. And that's just a partial list. Finally, I like to escape with some silly thrillers, such as What Lies Beneath and even some serious movies such as Remains of the Day (which I could watch once a week).
My other escape from reality is listening to the audiobooks by Alexander McCall-Smith in his series called 44 Scotland Street set in Edinburgh. Each book was put together after originally appearing in serialized form in The Scotsman. (I like his other two series's too: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series set in Botswana, and the Sunday Philosophy Club series set in Edinburgh).
But 44 Scotland Street is my favorite. It has a rich cast of characters, some of whom live in the boarding house at that address. How I'd like to have a word or two with the insufferable Irene, mother of poor little six-year old Bertie. Bertie wants to play like other kids his age, but instead he must always be furthering Irene's "Bertie project." She does things like paint his room pink so that he won't fall into boy-girl stereotypes, and she makes him wear crushed strawberry overalls when all he wants is a pair of jeans. And she keeps him busy all the time, taking him to yoga, the flotarium, saxophone lessons, Italian lessons, and worst-of-all for him unnecessary psychotherapy with the dense Dr. Fairburn. (I'm guessing at the spelling of names because I only listen to the books). Please, Alexander McCall Smith, save our Bertie!
The books in the series follow the same cast of characters. I feel as if they're old friends: the anthropologist Dominica; the portrait painter Angus (and his dog Cyril of course); the narcissistic Bruce; the coffee-bar owner Big Lou...and many more. He tells their stories with humor and insight—and also puts that humor and insight to work as he reflects on all of our human foibles. Finally, the books have a great narrator—Ian MacKenzie. He has a distinctive voice for each character. I could listen to him all day!
I think most people consider McCall-Smith to be light reading, but I think he's a great humorist in the Mark Twain tradition.
So that's escapism for me: movies on TV and an audiobook series with a cast of unforgettable characters in a city I've never been to!
What about you? What do you do that allows you to completely escape from the world for a while?
Mara here:
I need to start by putting in a trigger warning. People who are having a mental crisis or are easily triggered by thoughts and discussion about suicide or depression should not read this article.
For everyone, the National Suicide Hotline is: 1-800-273-8255. If you are having suicidal thoughts or feel you are at risk of hurting yourself, please reach out to someone for help.
I should also state that I am not a doctor. I have no medical training. So any thoughts I have about coping with depression are personal and should not be considered professional advice.
So now that everyone is probably sufficiently on high alert as to the topic of the blog, I will start with saying that I have never been on the brink of actually committing suicide. But as someone who has dealt with depression, sometimes severe, I can't say I've never thought about it.
With the recent high profile suicides of designer Kate Spade and chef Anthony Bourdain, a very public discussion about suicide erupted.
And sorting through the thoughts, both sympathetic and angry, it's clear that people generally fall into two groups: people who understand and people who don't.
I don't want to get into the religious debate about suicide. I don't follow a religious practice so I have nothing to offer to that argument.
I'm also not going to delve into the very real connection between addiction to drugs and alcohol and depression. Addiction is not something I've ever really struggled with so while I can logically explain why people mask their depression with addiction, I can't offer any personal experience with it.
What I can offer are some personal insights on depression as I've experienced it, and hopefully shed some light for people who can't understand how easily people who suffer from depression can decide that suicide is an option.
For people who don't suffer from clinical depression, suicide must be confusing and scary. In general, our society puts a stigma on death. It's something to be feared and avoided at all costs. Just growing older has become something that we try to fight off with plastic surgery, exercise, supplements—even just our mindset. We are told to think of sixty as the new forty, because we are told that we should want to be younger. We should want to live forever.
But from my own personal experience, what depression has created for me is a world that feels difficult to live in. Depression makes everything about living feel complicated and it's as if I can physically feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. All my senses get heightened to the point where the only way to survive is to shut them off—to try and numb myself to my feelings as much as possible. But once I am numb, then the idea of living altogether becomes distant. Joy is numbed. Hope is numbed. The panic is numbed, but the feelings of sadness and hopelessness are still there.
When I am in a state of deep depression, I become my own worst enemy. My mind becomes a weapon that it uses against itself. Every moment of my life past, present, and future are broken down into little bombs that are used to break down memories of happiness, achievement, or hope.
And then my instincts of survival kick in and I start to try and fight my negative thoughts with positive thoughts. But that requires even more energy. I can find myself semi-comatose for hours simply trying to survive the battle that is being waged inside my mind.
The weight of my thoughts become so heavy that it requires all my energy to simply survive them. There's very little energy left to do things like get out of bed.
And during the times in my life when I have been severely depressed and still had to function, I have had to force myself to pretend to be a regular human being. I do things mechanically, using my ability to numb all my feelings to simply survive day to day.
But all that does is give my brain another weapon to use against me, reminding me that I am pretending, and that nothing I'm doing is being done very well. And the numbing effect can lead to detachment, where I feel as if I'm watching myself live my life. I can almost see myself outside my body doing things. But it doesn't feel real. And if nothing I do feels real, what am I doing?
Life becomes very confusing. And there is the constant push and pull of my brain telling me that nothing I'm doing matters, and the part of my heart that tells me that my husband and my daughter need me.
When I've been in the worst of my depression, my thoughts tell me that all I am doing is making people around me unhappy. It tells me that no matter what I do, nothing will make me feel better. There are times my brain convinces me that I'm not capable of doing anything. My brain tells me that no matter what I do, nothing will feel good and nobody around me will be able to be happy because I'm not happy.
And when I am in that place, then my existence feels pointless.
And if my existence is pointless, then my life is pointless. And if my life is pointless, then my death isn't significant.
And even more importantly, the mind decides that death would be a relief. Death is the only lasting way to escape myself. And death is the only way to release those who love me from the pain of having to deal with me.
In those darkest of moments, I truly do believe that my family would be happier without me.
And for those people who can't understand how people who are successful could be suicidal, you have to understand that depression makes everything a burden. Achievements become burdens. Success becomes a burden. Success means people expect more of you—there is more pressure to continue to be successful. Success means there are more people depending on you to continue to be the successful version of you. Success means that there is even more likelihood of failure.
I have been very fortunate to have discovered early on in my life that being a high achiever in a conventional sense wasn't going to be sustainable for me. I pushed myself to the brink of destruction when I was younger, and nearly burned myself out. It was only the love and support of my family that allowed me to step back. It's only now with the benefit of hindsight that I see I was on a path of self-destruction. But I didn't recognize it at the time because it seemed like being a high achiever meant I was a success.
But for people with depression, success can be destructive. Success adds to the feelings of failure because our successes don't bring us lasting happiness. Success brings more pressure to continue to succeed.
But when I was young, I didn't know what I was feeling. All I knew was that starting at around 15 or 16 years old, I was having difficulty getting out of bed. I was riddled with self-doubt—and I was exhausted. I felt as if I'd already lived three lifetimes. Because mentally I had lived beyond my years. Mentally I felt a thousand years old.
Now, with many years of experience, and with the help of medication, I find that I am able to manage my depression. I still have bad episodes, but there is that little bit of room between the depression and my heart that allows me to survive.
And I have learned to take it day by day. It's similar to the experience I have heard some alcoholics speak about their addiction. They never stop wanting to have a drink. Or smokers, who never lose the desire to smoke a cigarette. My depression is always there, lurking. I'm never free of the weight that depression adds to my life. I have learned to acknowledge that it's part of me.
And I've learned to not hide it. I've learned to not be ashamed of it.
By not hiding it, it takes some of its power over me away. The pressure to pretend like I'm not depressed made being depressed exponentially more difficult to survive. And I'm not embarrassed by my depression anymore. In fact, I've learned that by being open about my depression, it makes it easier for my close friends to understand me.
Because of my depression, I know my attitude towards being alive is not the same as it is for other people. I feel old and worn out. If I mentally felt a thousand over twenty years ago, you can imagine how old I feel now.
Simply being alive does often feel like a burden for me. But I work every day to acknowledge the joys I have. And I get pleasure from the joys that my friends and loved ones have. And I survive. I live.
I hope nobody reading this article feels sad for me. Honestly, I don't feel sad about my life. I think if I felt sad about my life, I wouldn't be able to write about it. I am extremely fortunate. I truly feel fortunate. I have an incredible family and I have had incredible opportunities during my life. Being depressed doesn't mean I don't ever feel happiness.
I life a very good life. And I recognize I live a very good life. For people who don't know me, my life looks incredible. And from my point of view, my life is incredible. But I do struggle with depression. It's just part of who I am.
And that's why I felt it was important to write about this topic.
Depression is not a logical thing. It strikes people of all ages, races, economic levels, success levels, so there's no way to know who is suffering. And everyone deals with their depression differently.
I'm hoping that sharing some of my experiences and feelings will help other people who may have had similar feelings feel less stigmatized by them. Or perhaps it can help people who don't suffer from depression understand the experiences of friends and loved ones who do.
Mara here.
I met a new friend last week. She's about a decade younger than I am and in a completely different place in her life from me.
She's 33, unmarried, a successful business woman with no kids, living on her own—bi-coastally—in Los Angeles and New York. But she's starting to feel open to slowing her life down. She's thinking about finding a relationship and possibly starting a family.
I'm 43 and living a snail's-pace life, happily married for over 20 years with one child who's pretty much grown up.
So we were chatting about starting relationships, and my first piece of advice for anyone, whenever the subject comes up, is, "Don't pretend to be something you're not just because you want someone to like you."
I feel as if our natural instincts to be on our best behavior when we meet new people can sometimes turn into a problem in a long-term relationship. Because the reality is, we need to be honest with the people we are going to spend a lot of time with. It's hard to develop a true friendship and relationship if the person you're presenting as yourself is not who you really are.
She agreed, saying, "I definitely have a very set way I like to live."
And at some point I said, "Well, relationships do require a lot of compromise."
And she replied, "Well, what's the difference between compromising and not being true to yourself?"
Hmmm. I had to think about that. At that moment, she was getting into her car and I think I quickly said something about needing to pick your battles. You have to prioritize what is important to you because in relationships you don't always get to have everything your own way.
At that point, we went our separate ways.
But I kept thinking about what she had asked me because I've been in a relationship for so long; I was pretty much a child when I met my husband and we were lucky enough to grow up together and not grow apart. But being young, I didn't enter the relationship with a lifestyle already formed.
So, on my two-mile walk home (because I still do not have a car), I thought about how to describe compromise.
Compromise is definitely a very important component to relationships. So what does that mean? And how is compromising different from not being true to yourself? Thinking back on all my relationships—friends, spouse, child—I know I definitely do things that I don't want to do. I definitely feel as if I am not always "true to myself" because a lot of the time being true to myself is laying huddled under a pile of blankets reading books and eating candy corn.
So what's the balance?
By the time I got home, I decided that the important thing about compromise is that it has to be equal between the people in the relationship. And it has to be done willingly. The person who is doing something a way they might not have done on their own has to understand why they're changing their behavior and agreed to making the change.
And you can't have compromise where only one person does everything the way the other person wants. Both parties have to be willing to acknowledge that "their way" is not the "right way."
Everyone does things differently.
As my daughter liked to yell at me when she was around 3 years old, "Your mind is not my mind!"
And that's really what it boils down to. We have to recognize that everyone has their own preferences. And that each person's preferences are valid. And in a relationship, both people have to be willing to decide what's most important to them, and then acknowledge when they understand something is important to their partner. And then, depending on the people, as a couple you work out how you do things together.
And it's not about everything being literally equal. It's not about having an equal number of decisions made by each person.
There's no right or wrong way to figure out the balance for each couple. Some people are more easy-going (like my husband Brad), so if you looked at how we live our day to day life, you would probably think that I get my way a lot more than Brad does. And I do. But that's because he's not bothered by it. But when things are important to him, I know that I need to really pay attention and try to be as accommodating as possible because that's what creates the balance for us. He's okay with letting me be eccentric and puts up with my quirky behaviors because he knows that when he tells me something is important to him, I am accommodating.
But compromising again boils down to everyone involved being honest with each other. If you are compromising, but you are secretly harboring constant resentment, then it's not a compromise. Or if compromise isn't happening because your partner doesn't realize what you want because you haven't been honest with them about your true feelings, then that's also problematic.
The bottom line is that relationships are complicated. And compromise is vital to successful relationships. But compromise is ambiguous. There's no set way to compromise. Both people involved in the relationship have to feel as if they have a voice. Both people have to feel as if their wants and feelings are valid. And both people have to care enough about the other person in the relationship to be willing to put the other person's wants and needs above their own sometimes.
All relationships are different. Much like raising children, it's hard to just tell someone what they should do to have a successful relationship because different things work for different people. And it takes some time. People are going to make mistakes. People are going to be jerks. And couples will probably have to get through a fair number of fights as they figure out how to communicate.
But when you are in the right place mentally, and you find the right person, then any compromises you feel you are making for the relationship won't feel like a burden. The compromises you make to your life for the success of the relationship will hopefully feel more like growth instead of sacrifice. The benefits of the relationship will outweigh anything you feel you are giving up.
I asked my mother, who has also been married for many years and was also married at a young age, how she would describe compromise.
How would you describe the difference between compromise and just giving in to someone in a relationship?
Mara, I couldn't have described the difference better than you have! You have to find the balance that works, given each partner's personality. This means there should be no scorecard, as in: "I compromised yesterday so you owe me a compromise today." That's not wise because, as you said, one of the partners may find compromising easier than the other. Commit to talking about conflicts instead of holding them inside because otherwise resentment will raise its ugly head. Communication is the key—you can't compromise if neither of you knows what is important to the other one.
From a Buddhist perspective, is there a teaching about balancing your own desires with the desires of people around you?
From my Buddhist perspective, I'd say balancing desires is about being compassionate. By that I mean making a commitment to alleviate suffering in your life and in that of others. Alleviating suffering refers to mental suffering of course. Physical suffering is often not something we can control.
And by mental suffering, I'm referring to a range of emotions, from mild disappointment to full-blown anger and hurt and unhappiness. If you always insist on getting your way, others in your life will suffer. If you always give in to what others want, you're likely to suffer. Learning to compromise and not mind doing it is a good way to cultivate compassion for others and for yourself. In my relationship with your Dad, I don't no longer consciously think "I'm compromising." It just comes naturally...and it seems to come naturally to him to—and that makes life easier for both of us.
Mara here:
So, if you read the blog post from a couple of weeks ago, you already know that my daughter's car was hit and is now in the repair shop.
A quick update on that: the good news is that the car was not totaled—it is being repaired; the bad news is that for some reason it is taking them six weeks to repair the car.
Whaaat?
That's craziness.
Fortunately, my car goes relatively unused. I mainly use it to run errands. So my daughter has basically taken over my car so she can drive herself to and from school every day. You might wonder why I don't drive her. The simple answer is that she goes to school far away and it takes up a huge amount of time for me to drive to her school and back. I spent a year and a half doing that. I'm not doing it again unless I have no choice.
The not-so-simple answer is that during that year and a half, more often than not, our morning drives to school would end up with us fighting. (Neither of us is particularly in a good mood early in the morning.) So it's just easier on everyone if we're not forced into a confined space before noon.
So I essentially have been living without a car.
And while I think of myself as someone who doesn't drive very much, it's surprising how many things come up where I need to get somewhere. We fortunately live in an area where I can walk to a lot of places. And with driving services like Uber and Lyft, I'm never stuck without a way to get wherever I need to go.
So I have found myself walking around Los Angeles.
WALKING.
If you don't live in Los Angeles, you don't understand how weird this is. People don't just walk places here. You drive. Unless you are walking in a mall from store to store, if you need to transport yourself in Los Angeles—you drive. Unless you are speed walking and trying to get your steps in on your Fitbit—you drive.
And if you can't drive, you Uber.
There's a great scene from a Steve Martin movie titled, "L.A. Story" where he says he has to go to the neighbor's house, so he gets into his car, drives about 20 feet, and gets out and walks up to his neighbor's house. It's so L.A. My daughter is like that.
But I'm not like that. I've lived in cities like Washington, D.C. and London, where I did a lot of walking and used public transportation all the time.
So I've refused to get a rental car. I've been walking. I walked to the dentist. I walked to the metro hub and took the bus to the doctor's office about fifteen miles away. I had a meeting that I walked to. I walked to the dance studio to take a ballet class.
I've been walking through the city.
And I jog everyday, so it's not as if I'm not used to being outside.
But there's something very different about walking in a leisurely way. When I'm jogging, I'm usually focused on just getting through my jog. And I jog the same circuit every day, so it feels very automated.
Walking to new and different locations has allowed me to take notice of my surroundings. Being exposed to people and the environment around me is very different than just sitting in my insulated vehicle separated by metal and glass from everything around me.
Choosing to walk through the streets and neighborhoods has really given me the opportunity to notice all the different shops and plants and architecture around me that I'd never noticed as I zipped by in my car. I notice the different people; I hear all the sounds; I see the ugliness of the litter; I marvel at the beauty of the sky; I feel the weather as I'm outside in close contact with the world.
And it's a nice reminder of the fact that there are a lot of people who don't have cars. Living in Los Angeles, you forget that many people have to rely on the bus system and walking to get to their jobs. Public transportation in Los Angeles is terrible. It's cumbersome and will often take three to four times the amount of time it would take to drive.
But driving in Los Angeles is expensive. And the lucky people who don't have to worry about the cost of driving forget that not everyone has that luxury.
For me, walking has been a choice. I've been fortune to be able to enjoy my experiences walking instead of feeling burdened by it.
And it's been a nice change of perspective.
It's nice to be reconnected to the city and my neighborhood.
Trust me, I'll be happy when I get my car back from my daughter. I love my car. But I am definitely going to be more open-minded about walking to places when I have the time.
My mom grew up in Los Angeles, so I asked her a question about driving and busing and walking.
You grew up in Los Angeles. Was it always a driving obsessed city? Did you ever take public transportation?
L.A. was just as driving obsessed when I was growing up. I didn't have a car though. And parents didn't drive us places unless it was a long distance. And so I walked to and from junior high for three years. It was a long walk, up and down hills (yes, L.A. has hills). Then, in high school, I took the public transportation—a city bus.
Looking back on it, it's hard for me to believe I took the bus since I haven't been on one in more years than I can remember. I lived in West L.A. and my high school, University High, was almost in Santa Monica, maybe 10 miles away. Every morning, I walked four blocks from my house to Wilshire Blvd. where I caught the westbound bus, got off after a 20 minute ride or so, and walked another four blocks to my high school. Going home, I reversed that route.
When I was out and about during off-school hours, I almost always rode a bike. By the way, I love that scene in Steve Martin's "L.A. Story" too! In fact, my best friend in grammar school, Janey Lakes (who later became Congresswomen Jane Harman), lived a block away and I rarely walked to her house. I rode my bike.
After reading your piece and all the discoveries you've made, I wished I'd walked more.
Oh and, P.S., I'm still trying to get used to Uber as a verb!
