Hope is being able to see that there is light, despite all of the darkness ~ Desmond Tutu
Hope and Happiness
I heard about a really interesting study while listening to NPR this morning, the study was about the impact of watching inspirational videos on stress and anxiety. The study was pretty straight forward, take five groups of people, have one look at standard social media, a group watching inspirational videos, a group doing no media, and a group meditating, all for five minutes at the beginning of their day. They did pre and post surveys on the level of anxiety people were feeling. It turned out that the group that watched the inspirational videos had considerably less stress. They described the videos as inspirational and underdog type of videos where people beat the odds or overcame obstacles. The group that did this had the same level of stress reduction as the meditation group. So I took two things out of this, one, it’s probably a good idea for all of us to focus at least some of of our social media time, and preferably at the start of your day on inspiring and hopeful content. Also, by starting your day searching for this type of content, you start to train the algorithm to give you more of that type of content on your feed.
Here’s a link to some inspirational stories to get you started:
Secondly, the benefits of meditation continue to stack up and be proven to be highly beneficial. I’ve written several previous posts on meditation including one on the benefits of meditation with resources. So starting a meditation program can really be beneficial and I really need to get back to mine.
Put a little hope and inspiration in your lives and you’ll have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane
Right now I am trying to be in a place of calm, a place where I can chill out and then handle the chaos of life better. You don’t just get it overnight; you have to work at it. It’s a daily struggle. ~ Jackee Harry
Chasing Happiness in 2025
What a fucking year!
So tonight I’ll reveal some personal things that have been going on as well as things you already know about, but what a year. So, initially I was going to retire in February, but my October cardiac assessment showed I was likely going to need heart surgery this year. As you are all aware and if you’re a new reader go to the category link and click on the Rev Kane’s Wild Ride category, my most recent post was about my 90 days post surgery, I ended up scheduling my open heart surgery for August. Then some complications made me reconsider that date. First, the federal government was being completely unpredictable and honestly, I worried that the CEO of Kaiser could anger the president and it could impact their funding which could impact services. Secondly, my boss at the time obviously hated me and was actively trying to cause me problems. So, lack of stability in a lot of ways made me decide to move the date up to May. My surgery in May happily went well and my recovery, I’m a little over five months out now, is going well.
One of the things I haven’t talked about a lot was the mental toll the surgery took on me. It was of course stressful, amazingly stressful. In fact, for me, the mental part of it was far harder than the physical process. This was NOT a surprise to me, it’s something I’ve learned doing long distance hikes, it’s always the mental part that’s actually harder than the physical challenge. And the mental part this time involved a really deep fear of dying. I’m a trained scientist and a logical son of a bitch, so I deal with fear with measurement and data. And even the data at times terrified me, being tachycardic for a few weeks after surgery terrified me, it’s potentially a symptom of atrial fibrillation, which is a big risk after heart surgery and can kill you. I had a lot of instances of nearly fainting because we were, and still to some degree are dealing with issues of low blood pressure. Not a bad thing, it’s a huge improvement form the high blood pressure issues I had pre-surgery, but almost passing out kind of sucks and can be terrifying in it’s own right. Like I said, still dealing with this and trying to get my meds appropriately dialed in, almost fainted driving home one night last week, took my BP right after it was 95/60. Again, easily dealable but in the moment pretty scary. I also had one night with some crazy physical symptoms that forced me to call 911, they found no reason for what happened, which in itself is also a bit scary. But the symptoms have happily not returned. My head is getting back to normal around my health, especially now that I’m back to fully working out.
Returning to work has sucked! I have a new boss who I like a lot, but the job still sucks for all the reasons it sucked pre-surgery. So I’m in a job hunt, and lucky me, I’m looking for a job in one of the worst times to look for a job in education in ages. I’m also complicating it, were I looking for another dean’s gig in the California Community College System, I’d be fine, but I don’t want to be a dean anymore, I have no desire to manage faculty. Twenty plus years of that stress is enough. Don’t get me wrong, I always have had and currently do have some amazing faculty that I get to work with, folks who truly care about students. But unfortunately the pleasure of working with them doesn’t outweigh the bullshit you deal with generated from bad, uncaring faculty and just people who are assholes. Our system has a lot of faculty job protections and limited accountability, things that should exist to a degree to protect important ideas like academic freedom. However it also provides protections for people to be nightmares, cause chaos for everyone and still retain their jobs.
So I’m looking for a lower level position, something closer to working with students. This means that I’m moving from a much higher position, moving across the country, taking a massive pay cut, I’m older and this allows for a lot of potential red flags. I’ve run literally hundreds of hiring committees and there always seem to be one person who flags people for things they “believe” about candidates. A good chair points out that most of these concerns aren’t valid, things like “they don’t really want this job”, “they won’t stay in the position”, “I don’t know why they’re applying” when in fact the job of the first level committee review is only about whether or not the candidate is qualified and to move on those most qualified who are also a best fit for the requirements. I’m also applying for some positions that are more student service oriented and while I do student service functions nearly every day, the position titles I have in student services were earlier in my career. And yes, I explain most of this in my cover letter.
Additionally, colleges nationally are being hammered on grant funds, federal support programs etc… and worse there is no predictability around these funds, so many colleges have slowed their hiring to be able to deal with internal openings caused by sudden changes in their funding. So things have been moving slowly, or at least more slowly than I would like and this has taken a toll on me as well.
All of the above and me feeling like my life is utterly and completely in limbo has really hammered my mental state. Honestly, I’ve been about as deep in the well as I have been in fifteen years. I’m ok, and that’s completely down to what I’ve been doing with this blog for the last fifteen years. Fifteen years ago, this level of depressive pressures would have me completely paralyzed and a total mess, I know, I’ve been there. Instead now it presents more like languishing, and a flatness to everything I experience and feel.
Things have recently ramped up on the family front. I had a few years of quiet, enjoyed it, and knew it wouldn’t last and it hasn’t. Something I haven’t talked about online, because she didn’t want me to, has been my mother’s health issues. But, I’m going to piss her off because I am now. My mother was diagnosed with lung cancer a few years ago. She went through radiation treatment and it held the cancer at bay. About a year or so ago it returned, and much more aggressively. She did a round of chemotherapy that they told her would slow but not stop it. Of course they didn’t take into account she’s half hillbilly and hillbilly blood is some miraculous shit. Seriously, those appalachian hillbillies are nearly impossible to kill. I think it comes from generations of selective pressures, basically if you survived past the age of five you were tough as hell. Generations of that selection pressure has made those people damn near invincible. And as a half-hillbilly, her cancer has basically again, stopped progressing for the last year or so. Well, until now. When I was home recently for an interview, I noticed some memory issues she was having, others had mentioned them as well. This week, my sister brought her to the ER regarding some dizziness and headaches and what we found out a couple of days ago is that she has a mass on her brain. She’s in the hospital and it’s been rough and I’ll leave it at that and we still don’t have all the details of what it will mean for her.
This has all been especially hard on my sister, because she’s also the primary caretaker for my father. And he has his own issues that have led to him recently taking a couple of falls, one that resulted in a broken hip and leg, the other a cracked open skull. He’s had two stints in nursing home rehabs and my sister has been supporting all of that as well.
All of this adds another layer of chaos and decisions that need to be made and even have me possibly reconsidering what my current next steps should be, limbo, giant fucking limbo!
So I’m walking the walk and doing the things I’ve talked about so many times before, and no, I won’t go back over them tonight. But one of the big things you need to do is find calm and recharge, find things that you can fall into, loose time and just step out of the world. Things that you enjoy doing and the two big ones for me are hiking and cooking. But by hiking I mean hiking off the beaten path, long distance walking and in the bay area that’s just not an option. There are plenty of great trails, unfortunately you can’t go ten minutes without seeing other hikers and far too often hikers who are trail tourists and annoy the hell out of me. So tonight, after a little urban hiking and the no kings protest in San Francisco, and of course some pizza I came home to cook. Tonight it was all about making bone broth and then a huge pot of chicken and tortellini soup. And man, it may be the best pot I’ve ever made.
So this post is only about two things, the first incredibly selfish. The main ways I process are to talk and write. I have few people anymore to talk to, so I write and tonight this is me processing. The second thing is to remind you all to find those things you can fall into and get lost in, to find those ways to recharge. The world is crazy right now, we all need to find ways to escape and recharge and I hope you’re finding ways to do that, it leads to happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane
Pizza makes me think anything is possible. ~ Henry Rollins
Happy Pizza Find in Syracuse
So recently I had a trip to Syracuse for a job interview. What will come as a surprise to no one who knows me or regularly reads this blog, prior to heading to Syracuse I googled, best pizza in Syracuse. There were several places that came up, but overwhelming it seemed that people were pretty high on a place in Mattydale, just north of the city, a place called Paladinos.
I’ll post this review onto the Pizza Page soon but wanted to drop it here first. I popped over in the late afternoon and the first thing I noticed was the atmosphere was completely right. It was a smallish place, not fancy and just felt right for NY pizza place. There were working class guys eating lunch, and a couple of old guys arguing nonsense with each other over slices. It was busy, fast pace and the women working the counter were both nice and complete wise-asses, I definitely felt at home in this place. One look at the slices and I knew I was going to be happy, but of course, looks aren’t everything.
The first bit of happiness was that my favorite combination, pepperoni and mushrooms, which is never available in slices was there. So I got two and a cheese slice (the standard by which I judge all slices), a coke and settled in. I immediately noticed something that made me very happy.
There were granulated garlic shakers on the table. It’s one of my biggest complaints is a lack of granulated garlic available at a lot of pizza places.
When my slices arrived they looked even better warmed up.
The toppings were amazing, well crisped pepperoni, the right kind of mushrooms. The cheese was well portioned and the sauce was quite tasty. My only complaint I have, and it’s a very tiny one, is that the crust was not as crisp as it could have been. They were really great slices, a solid 9.8 out of 10. Which should have been of no surprise because as you can see from above, this pizza place has won a very impressive pizza award.
The next day after my interview I decided to stop in again for lunch since Paladinos sits right next to I-90, I would be rolling right by on my way back to Albany. Lunch was really pizza and the slice selection was a bit lower because they were turning over slices really quickly. So no pepperoni and mushroom and I decided to get one of each, a pepperoni, a mushroom and a cheese.
I was even more impressed this time, apparently the pies the day before had just been pulled early as the crust on these was perfect. The one complaint I have is that they use the absolute cheapest paper plates, but everything else was spectacular, the best slices I’ve had outside of Brooklyn.
You can’t fix yourself out of a mental health issue. You can’t wake up and say, ‘Today I’m not being depressed!’ It’s a process to get well, but there is recovery. ~ Margaret Trudeau
I’ve Got Nothin!
I’ve been writing this blog for fifteen years and this has been the hardest week to come up with a post, and honestly I haven’t. I’m snake bit right now, hence the image. This image comes from an amazing day, my second day in the famous Jemaa El-Fna square in the old city, Marrakesh, Morocco. It’s an absolutely wild place, an amazing and old Islamic culture running face first into the modern world, tourists from everywhere in a soup of French, Arabic, English and lord knows how many other languages. The old city in Marrakesh is an intense place, the hustlers are on you constantly. Walking the winding and confusing corridors is one of the most intense travel experiences I’ve ever had. You’re walking in a maze, GPS is a waste of time, every three feet some new person is offering to guide you, sell you something or hustle you in some way. And a share of them will come at you when you turn them down, it’s some of the most aggressive hustling I’ve ever experienced. And it’s a full-on sensory experience! You’re dusty and thirsty and the smells are out of control, from spices to foods to incenses it’s really overwhelming. The peace of the inner walls of your riyadh is heaven compared to the madness, and of course, I loved it.
The square is one of the most famous tourist destinations on the planet and it’s absolutely magnificent. From snake charmers to musicians to pick-pockets and all manner of tourists there is a constant buzz. Food of every type imaginable and of course I tried the camel burger, it wasn’t half bad. But the day in this image was spent doing something I’ve always wanted to do, sit in a cafe in Morrocco, sip mint tea with old Morroccans and watch the world go by and that’s exactly what I did. I picked the least touristy, least welcoming cafe on the square, one where I did not see a single white face. As I walked in, old men scowled or looked at me quizzically. I took a seat at the edge of the square, greeted the waitress in Arabic and ordered a pot of mint tea. I then spent two hours and went through two pots of tea just watching the square and it was everything I hoped it would be, couldn’t have been better short of Indiana Jones, Rick from Casablanca sitting down for a chat.
My favorite thing that I saw that day was a scam being run by a huge Morroccan dude with a very well-trained monkey. He was hanging out in the square and when he saw a loving couple walking through the square he would toss the monkey on the man’s back. The monkey was trained to scramble up and sit on the man’s head. He would then run up and say, “how cute, take a picture.” He would then offer to take a picture of the couple with the monkey on the guy’s head, they of course always did it. Then, this very large, and very scary looking guy would hold out is hand with a gnarly look on his face and say, $20. While of course holding their phone and with the monkey having two full hands of the man’s hair. So of course they paid, seriously, every single time they paid and I saw no negotiating. He then would make a hand signal and the monkey would leap off and climb up on his shoulder. I watched him run this dozens of times over the two hours, he had to have made several hundred dollars.
There are always snake charmers in the square and they really don’t pay enough attention to their snakes. They draw huge crowds and have a dozen snakes, cobras and desert rattlesnakes and other various forms of slithering death. I watched at one of their shows, while I was sipping my tea, when one of the desert rattlesnakes slithered off at a random direction, they had no idea. They were so focused on playing with the cobras and hustling the tourists that they didn’t see as this snake just kept going. It was amazing to watch as the crowds split along the path of the snake like the parting of the Red Sea. Eventually one of the snake charmers realized what was happening and went running after and retrieved the snake.
I had decided I wanted a picture with a cobra, so I went over to one of the groups. Now, I’m not really cool with snakes but the world’s most dangerous reverend has to do, what he has to do. So I went over and watched the show and then started working towards getting my photo and I made one small mistake, I didn’t get the price settled and paid first. So this guy gets this huge cobras attention while holding my phone and tells me to squat behind it. As I do, the snake starts to turn my way and this is a frightening moment, this snake is solidly five to six feet long and can easily strike the full distance. To get the snakes attention focused back on him, he whacks him right in the head with my phone, which does the trick happily for me and then he takes the photo above. Right after that he gathers up the snake and is holding it and my phone as he tells me the price. It was at that moment I learned two things, one, I’m fairly brave, and two, my bravery has a limit. And it’s where I came up with the adage, never negotiate with a man holding a cobra. Seriously, they fleeced me for this photo, it cost me like $40. They were happy, I was happy, in fact they were so happy they were willing to throw in a bonus, they were willing to hang six, yes six, non-venomous water snakes around my neck and take another picture. I absolutely declined, and we all had a good laugh.
So, the message tonight, there is no message, just a memory of a really great day, from one of my travels. I’m honestly in the deepest well I’ve been in, in nearly fifteen years and I’m completely snake bit. Right now, nothing, absolutely nothing is going right. So while I have a final level interview on Friday there is absolutely no pressure, because given the way this week is going, there’s no way I’ll get the job. This actually makes it kind of an easy gig, and while it will cost me a bunch of money to fly to NY to do the interview, I’ll also get a chance to see some family and friends and of course, eat some real NY pizza.
So this week my friends, I have no advice, I have no energy, honestly, I’ve got nothin, so I just hope that you can do your best to have a happy day. ~ Rev Kane
Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night. ~ Hal Borland
I Love the Fall
Fall has always been my favorite season. I don’t like the heat and so Summer, while it certainly has lots to like particularly around getting in the water, heat, particularly with humidity truly makes me miserable. I grew up in the Northeast, so humidity was part of summer, as were the damn bugs, flies and midges during the day, mosquitoes as the sun goes down, not a fan. One of the reasons I have so loved living in the dry environs of the West Coast is the lack of bugs. It’s not that there aren’t any, but there are a lot fewer, and particularly during my time in the desert, there were almost none.
Fall on the other hand meant that the cool weather cut down on the number of bugs. Even when there are hot days in the fall, the nights cool off significantly. The leaves begin to change colors lighting up the forest, and even the crackle of dry leaves on the ground as you walk makes me happy. Falling leaves have a special place in my heart. I love catching falling leaves, one of my favorite memories as a child was a game I would play in elementary school at lunchtime in the fall. There was a massive old elm tree in the center of our school’s playground. A side note, my sister taught at that school and years ago I went to visit and realized they’d cut the tree down, I was very sad. At lunchtime after eating, I would go out to the playground, and instead of jumping into the daily kickball game I would catch leaves. If you’ve never done it, it’s amazing. Leaves fall in absolutely no rational way, trying to catch them, in the breeze, when you’re a competitive little shit like I was, takes total focus. I would get completely lost, running, spinning even falling down as I tracked a leaf. And then I would do it again and again and again until the bell rang and I had to go back to class. This I would repeat every day from the start of leaf fall until that big old tree was devoid of leaves. It was a simple thing but I loved it, loved getting lost in it, the only time I get that way at this point in life is writing or taking photos.
Fall was also the time of year to be in the woods. It was cooler, no bugs, fewer snakes, with the leaves dropping it was easier to spot wildlife. As a kid, fall meant hiking and hunting and it was absolutely the time of year I spent the most time in the woods. Camping in the fall is amazing, after a long day of hiking, unlike in the Summer, you get a nice cool night to sleep in, I absolutely love it.
Of course you substitute when your world changes, my substitution on the West Coast has been desert camping in the winter. It’s a close approximation to the falls of the North East, nice sunny days and cool amazing nights. In the Fall, or in the desert Winters, you get dry nights which means no clouds and bright clear stars when you get into places with dark skies.
The other thing that Fall often brings is rain. I have a weird relationship with rain. I love rain, the experience of petrichor, the smell of the forest when it rains after a warm dry spell. To me that is the smell of life, warmth and safety. I also love thunderstorms, big thundering rains and downpours, the sound of rain pounding on a plastic or tin roof is one of the most soothing sounds I can imagine. But how I hate cold rain, and my time on the Appalachian Trail solidified that. On the trail there is a saying, embrace the suck. It means accept and even engage and love the horrid conditions, because a lot of the time will be like that. Until you can get past the physical discomforts, you really can’t get the gifts that are all around you while hiking the trail.
So, while this nostalgic post was really just me wallowing in a time of year I really love, the message and the lesson tonight is embrace the suck. We all have shit in our lives almost all of the time, our jobs, bills, obligations and responsibilities. We live in a complex, frustrating and disappointing world. At some level however, you have to find some level of peace and acceptance with the sucky parts of our lives, because until we do, we can;t see the gifts all around us and find the happiness we deserve. So embrace the suck my friends and have happier days. ~ Rev Kane
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. ~ Lao Tzu
Take a Bath in Nature
I’ve spent a lot of time in nature, a lot of time on hiking trails, sometimes weeks, sometimes months and bathing is always an issue. Most of the time, you bathe when you go into towns to resupply and sleep in a bed for a night. Of course, sometimes you do bathe on the trail. And while you want this to be the way it happens in every western film, rarely have you hung your clothes on some branches and suddenly notice the attractive woman bathing as well. You know the scene, she asks you to turn away as she gets out and then steals your clothes and runs away. It of course always turns into a meet cute for the big macho cowboy, lose this image of bathing on the trail. Usually it’s a wash rag and a stream, some soap, not much of a bath and even less privacy. Once in the Himalayas it was really fancy, a metal bowl of hot water, standing in the November sun at 15,000 feet, stripped down to my underwear and using a wash cloth and the bowl. Honestly, it was maybe the greatest bath I’ve ever had.
But tonight I’m not talking about bathing in the traditional sense, what I’m talking about tonight is bathing in nature, you most often hear it referred to as forest bathing. Shinrin-yoku (Japanese: 森林浴, 森林 (shinrin, “forest”) + 浴 (yoku, “bath, bathing.[1]“)), also known as forest bathing, is a practice or process of therapeutic relaxation where one spends time in a forest or natural atmosphere, focusing on sensory engagement to connect with nature. This practice likely originated in Japan but has also become popular in Finland, South Korea, and most recently in America.
The simplest way to explain this is just taking time to disconnect from life and be in nature. There is no mystery as to why this is as beneficial as it is for your health. It’s just a great idea to disconnect for ten or fifteen minutes and be in nature. We know that things like bird songs can help calm our nervous system and make us less stressed and anxious. As someone with a background in evolutionary biology this makes perfect sense to me. At the core of our lizard brains, for all of those hundreds of thousands of years that humans were wondering around in nature, birds singing meant safety. If you’ve ever been sitting in the forest and suddenly the forest goes quiet, you’ll instantly feel nervous. Animals go quiet in the presence of things that might eat them and all those centuries ago, those things might eat us as well. So when the birds were happily singing, we would, and still do, feel safe.
So my friends, in these anxious times, find some way to do small bits of nature. You just need to get far enough off of the concrete to get away from traffic and human sounds. You don’t need absolute natural quiet. Natural quiet is a term used to describe being far enough out in nature that you can hear no human sounds, this is not an easy thing to achieve. But you don’t need that, you just need it quiet enough so the sound of nature is the primary sound and human noise is limited and in the background. Spend ten or fifteen minutes walking or sitting in a place like this is enough to make you feel better. And you can even find this in parks in cities sometimes. It’s important to have your phone off, and also to really engage your senses. Take time to feel some leaves, (make sure you know what poison ivy looks like), crumple some pine needles in your hand, roll them around and breathe in the aroma. Close your eyes and just listen for a bit. Disconnecting from life, and using all of your senses to experience nature will help you have a happier day my friends.
White Blazes make me happy
I’ll end this tonight with two quick memories of forest bathing and one moment of what I call mountain bathing and even desert bathing. I think you can do this type of thing in any type of environment, not just forests. The desert absolutely works, and you can do this sitting on the shore of the ocean, a river or a lake.
There was a day on the Appalachian Trail (AT) when it had turned into a really hot afternoon, I think I was in Virginia and I just needed a break and it absolutely turned into a forest bathing experience. I found a stream, a really lovely rock to sit on and I pulled off my shoes and soaked my feet in the cool stream. The sun was breaking in around through the trees, the trickling of the stream was really soothing. A little breeze blew through and I could smell different plant smells and I spent about fifteen minutes sitting there watching the biggest damn bullfrog I’ve ever seen, hop, swim and crawl around in the stream. Honestly, it felt like I was in the Lord of the Rings watching Gollum kick around in the river.
One of my absolute favorite moments on the AT was when we were heading into a trail town in North Carolina. We were flying along and I was hiking with another hiker and we came over a little ridge and dropped into a little bowl in the forest and I just stopped. My friend asked if I was alright, I said yes, I’m just gonna stay here awhile and he went on. This little bowl of forest was amazing and I sat down off the trail on a log and just took it in for about twenty minutes. It was a green, beautiful forest and everywhere there were little white and pink flowers in bloom. It was a fairly windless day and because of that, the aroma of the flowers was just settled into this depression. This is forest bathing, disconnected from the world and sitting in a beautiful forest, listening to the birds and having the most amazing floral smells wafting around you, it was spectacular.
I’ve had a lot of great desert bathing experiences but most recently I have been camping in Valley of the Fire State Park over the Winter Holidays each year. I found a spot my first time there that I visit every time. It’s about a mile hike off the road, not really on a trail, where there’s a rock finger sliding up out of the ground. At the base there is the most amazing purple rock and it leads up to wind blasted sandstone with various colored lines running through it. Sitting on the back side, in the shade near sunset you can’t hear the cars and the desert opens up in front of you in every direction and in every imaginable rock color, really spectacular.
Second Gokyo Lake
My most amazing nature bathing experience happened in the Himalayas at what I have since that day referred to my favorite place on Earth. I spent thirty days hiking in the high passes of the Himalayas. We went through three valleys during the month and the second valley we went into was the Gokyo Valley. This valley is special because as you climb up to almost 17,000 feet in this valley you pass the seven sacred lakes of the valley. These lakes are revered and not to be entered. During the hike there was a peak, an ice saddle called Kangtega, and for some reason I was really drawn to it. On our hike up the Gokyo valley a couple miles short of the tea house we’d be stopping at for the night, there was a spot above the second sacred lake. After getting to the tea house, I hiked back down and spent three hours sitting on a large rock above the lake with Kangtega in the distance and just was, for hours, it was my favorite moment in the Himalayas.
Rev Kane and a hiking friend
I think my blood pressure dropped ten points just writing this post, the links above almost all lead to previous travel blogs I’ve written, be well and have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
Just Rev Kane petting a 35 foot Grey Whale in Mexico
Don’t die old, die empty. That’s the goal of life. Go to the cemetery and disappoint the graveyard.~ Myles Munroe
Happiness when you’re on empty
We live in an ever increasingly turbulent and stressful world. Hell, just in the last week a prominent right-wing podcaster was assassinated leading to all kinds of hateful rhetoric all around. Russia decided to fly a dozen drones into Poland causing NATO to scramble jets and shoot them down giving off all kinds of WWIII vibes, prices at the grocery store are up and it’s increasingly looking like the economy is about to tank. Not to mention that this country probably hasn’t been this politically divided since the 1860’s. So if you’re feeling a little stressed out, a little anxious, a little drained of the energy it takes to be happy, well, that probably means you’re a thinking and caring human.
Times like these, and even personal situations where your pushed and stressed to the edge does a very specific thing to us, it drains us of our emotional reserves. Emotional reserves are that cushion or barrier that help you take a breath and not just react. When you have them, and someone cuts you off in traffic, you might swear a little in the car but you keep driving. When you don’t have them, you lay on your horn, you become irate and it ruins the next hour. Those reserves give you the space and ability to moderate your emotional reactions. When those reserves have been drained for a long time you just go flat, meaning you start to lose the ability to react at all, the world becomes a dull, gray flat landscape and that’s where empty turns into depressed, so it’s important to stop that slide.
It’s been a long six years for most people since COVID and that applies to me. Since COVID I spent two years working in a turbulent work environment as literally everything we do in education has changed. Add to that an organization that has had continuous changes in leadership, I’ve had 6 supervisors in 6 years, and our organization has had 6 presidents in 6 years. And finally, the stress and changes associated with having impending, then actually having open heart surgery and recovering. Now I’m fully engrossed in a cross-country job search which quite honestly has been frustrating for a number of reasons.
So many of us are on empty.
The question then becomes, what about happiness? How can you continue to be happy, when you’re on empty. I believe that this is one of those situations where you have to fall back on the answer to the age old question, how do you eat an elephant? One small bite at a time. Likewise, if you try and make grand gestures or huge changes you often fall flat on your face. So you need to work back a little bit at a time. First, and if you read this blog regularly you’ve heard this from me before, you have to start with the basics. Are you eating right, drinking enough water, getting exercise, sleeping enough and are you safe? That safety is both a physical and mental question. You can’t move forward to work on being happier until you get the basics well in hand.
After you’ve got the basics handled then you can work on being happier. So what does one bite at a time mean in terms of happiness. Honestly, it simply means to start small. And my recommendation is start with yourself and your internal voice. It’s a silly thing that I often recommend to people I coach and counsel, it’s about changing your internal script. We internally talk to ourselves all day and this has an impact, it goes back to the old cliche, whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right. If you are consistently reminding yourself that you are stressed out, on empty, that there’s nothing positive to look forward to, that is exactly where you will remain. So here’s my recommendation, each morning, first thing, and I mean this literally, take a look in the mirror and tell yourself, I’m a good person, I deserve and I can be happy. Then follow through and consciously plan to do one thing that makes you happy that day, no matter how small.
The small things can be a whole lot of things. Maybe you plan to buy a cookie after lunch. Maybe it’s planning and taking a 10 minute tea break all by yourself or a short walk in nature. Maybe it’s an act of gratitude where you purposefully take time to write a thank you to someone today. Maybe you plan to do something nice for someone today, we know that gratitude and doing for others makes us feel better as well, which fills our own tank as well as theirs.
So my friends, even if you’re on empty, little by little look and find ways to fill your tank. Being consistent about this over time will bring you back to where you hope to be, a happier place, having happier days. ~ Rev Kane
Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain. ~ Joseph Campbell
Look for joy and happiness, not just comfort
My life is clearly marked by a level of comfort. I understand absolutely, that makes me a privileged person. I would imagine that having a life of comfort puts me in a better position than likely 40% of Americans, which means that I’m likely in a better spot than literally billions of people on this planet. So let me start by saying I know how fortunate I am to be in the position I am in, and right now my life, even post surgery, it is full of comfort
What do I mean by comfort, I have shelter, I have food, a job, but it’s more than that, it means not just the basics, not just the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. But it means that I can not just afford to eat, but can afford to eat good food, to go out to dinner, to live in a very comfortable apartment, albeit one with thin walls. I’m not constantly worried about finances or whether or not I can afford a vacation this year. Hell, given my job I’m even comfortable in the sense of time, I get a good number of holidays and five weeks of vacation each year. Pretty good, at least by American standards.
But the thing is, something is missing, has been for awhile now and that’s joy. Sure, I occasionally still take decent vacations, I spend time exploring San Francisco, I have good books to read, great music to listen to and from time to time have some really exceptional meals. About the only joy I have in my life right now is my weekly pizza.
Now, given my life of comfort and privilege in many ways I have no complaint, as I stated at the beginning I know that I have it much better than most, but I have large appetites and I’ve lived my life in search of joy and happiness, not just comfort.
For me, my joy and happiness usually comes through adventure, when I’m traveling, or out in nature particular on long-distance hikes. It’s been far too long since I’ve done any of that and the days are getting shorter. My next chapter needs to contain a lot more joy than I’m having right now, as far as I’m concerned, our lives are made by how much we live, how much love, how much adventure and most of all, how much joy and happiness. Stay focused on that and you’ll have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane
I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath. ~ David Lynch
Don’t Make it About You!
Someone said something to me while visiting during my recovery that I thought was really profound. When you come to visit someone recovering they said, never bring them anything that creates stress or an obligation. She was responding to the fact that several people had brought me plants. Now in my case, it wasn’t a big deal, I already have a tiny patio garden and a couple extra plants was no significant burden, but the point was valid. I love that people have good intentions, but I hate that people don’t stop and think about the impact of those intentions. My mother is a great example of this, she lives on the East Coast, me, the West Coast for like thirty years now. She refuses to pay attention to the time difference. So much so that I’m forced to turn my ringer off every night because if not, I’m liable to get a call or text ridiculously early in the morning, for my birthday recently she texted at 4:15AM. She’s not alone, my father texted me a blank text yesterday at 4:42AM. Again, the intention of a birthday text is to wish someone happy birthday, a good intention, but the reality is possibly waking that person up at 4AM.
This is a common sitcom trope, the dad goes out an buys the mom a new riding mower for her birthday because she wants one, or she buys him a spa gift certificate knowing he won’t use and she will get to go in his place.
During my recovery I dealt with this a lot, a bunch of really wonderful people were incredibly helpful to me. But often, in their desire to do something nice they had the complete opposite impact. I’m a single guy, I live alone and while recovering my appetite wasn’t very large. People would continually ask, what food can I bring you, I’d say nothing, but they would show up with a bag of fruit/vegetables or take out. If I asked for an apple from the store, they would bring three. All much appreciated, however it meant a lot of food went bad and I really hate wasting food, no doubt related to as a kid, not having food to waste.
So it’s a simple message tonight, please do nice things for people, we want to show the people we care for, that we care for them. But take the extra step of thinking about what impact will that action have, will it create an obligation or end up having the opposite impact that you desire? We all live busy hectic lives and we’re trying to check off our to do lists, so often if it’s a gift or a gesture we do it quickly to get the list done. Slow down my friends, take a breath, think a little more deeply about it and you’ll create more happy days my friends. ~ Rev Kane
San Francisco is a mad city – inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people whose women are of a remarkable beauty. ~ Rudyard Kipling
A Walking Day in San Francisco
I know my time living in San Francisco is growing shorter, so I want to make sure I tick off all of the things I want to do here. To be honest it’s a really short list, I’ve done a good job over the last six years of taking advantage of much of what the city has to offer, at least those things I’m interested in. I was having a conversation at work the other day with a Burmese staff member and realized I had never had Burmese food. So I asked for a recommendation and Burma Superstar became my first walking target on my latest walk. I got the Chicken Basil, Burmese Fried Rice and the Tea Leaf Salad and it was all absolutely fantastic.
From Burma Superstar I walked over and through the Presidio.
Coming out of the Presidio I walked over to my next target, the Palace of Fine Arts, someplace that looks absolutely amazing when you drive by it and I’ve always wanted to get down there. But honestly, it’s big, and pretty, but wasn’t all that exciting.
The beauty of being in the Marina District is that you do get great views of the Golden Gate Bridge and sometimes, it seems like the bridge is right in the city.
Finally, after finishing about ten miles of walking I ended up down near Fisherman’s Wharf for my last target of the day, my very first cable car ride, pictured above. Even got the locals discount, although honestly I just think the conductor was lazy and didn’t want to deal with a Clipper Card so my ride was free. It was a fun ride because of the tourists, had a good conversation with some women from NOLA and a couple from Australia. Ended up one car short of getting to ride on the Willie Mays car #24.
All in all a lovely and long day in the city, and a complete rarity, not a single pizza slice the whole day. And of course San Francisco wouldn’t be San Francisco without a little bit of weirdness.
The Ministry of Happiness 