Your Choice?

Bars of soap along with other common products;
corn meal, rice, salt, sugar, oil, pasta ...

At the store, we've got plenty of choices for bathing products. They're all one or another variety of soap, usually with stuff added.  They're almost all necessary, of course.

For comparison, note the blue bars in the photo (right).

That's soap in Africa and perhaps for much of the world. The large bar is cut off in chunks and used for laundry, for bathing, for hair washing, and pretty much everything along that line.  It's not bad, really.  It's used in school and home and at the river where they do laundry and dishes, and it works fine.  

So how much does our culture shape us?  We know you have to have at least five kinds of soap, and you can't dry clothes without using a softener sheet, and men and women can't use the same deodorant.  True?  OK, five kinds of soap: bath, hair, dish, laundry, and nice smelling stuff for shaving.  And they all use similar ingredients with stuff added for this or that reason; perhaps mostly for smell.

Do we maybe over-do it a bit?  The proliferation of stuff in our lives is in some measure force-fed to us by a profit-driven marketplace and social acquiescence.  Much if not most of it all isn't worth the time and effort, much less the money.

You can choose, despite the social and marketplace pressures.  You can strive to have everything and lots of it, like your culture insists, or you could choose ... to live simply, and leave some room in your budget thanks to the absence of excess.  Then you could do things with your kids or help others or put your kids through school without going into debt, perhaps.  Or travel.  Thoughts?

Just an aside, the cost of the bathing products (top, left) would pay for the products and school uniforms (top, right) plus tuition and fees for a semester, around $45 or so.  Feel like joining the assistance effort?  It's tax deductible!

And on a fun note, I took some kids with me on a trip to a little grocery store for momma.  One pre-teen discovered the nice smelling bath soap (Dial or Dove or something like that); she figured it was really special, so she excitedly asked if I could buy a bar for the kids to use.  Of course.

What matters now?

What matters most?

Lots of time gets expended on less important things. Life tends to consume whatever time is available.

Today, there are people near and far that can and perhaps should be the joy of our lives.  

(The phone rings; it's Walter from Kenya!  He calls to say hello and thanks because we send him a little money each month. He's a polio survivor, lives in a wheelchair, and visited me when I was injured and bedridden in Kenya. He lives in absolute simplicity. He's never asked for anything, and he's taught me more about character and love than most folks in my life. His speech is difficult because of the polio, but we talk regularly and laugh a lot, and he prays for us every day.  He's a treasure.)

All you need is love

Despite our light-hearted use of the phrase, the concept is ancient and apparently true.  Love is all you need.

A group of Harvard researchers, on a mission to uncover the true roots of life fulfillment, conducted a 75-year study that reached the same conclusion.

The Harvard Grant Study, led by psychiatrist George Vaillant, followed the life trajectories of 268 male students in order to answer life’s universal questions of growth, development, value and purpose. Vaillant considers the most meaningful finding of the study to be that a happy life revolves around loving relationships. 

Vaillant explains that there are two pillars of happiness: "One is love. The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away."

It's worth noting, the study results describe mature love, genuine commitment, and the associated sacrifices of meaningful relationship between friends, family, and beyond.  

There are so many important things in life; success, income, shelter, security, health, food, education, a place in community, justice,  ....  But love leads them all, and if it's missing, they don't make up the difference.

Earlier work, see here.

Inequality by the Numbers

(Two societies compared)
Curious what differences you might see between the two?  

In 'A' vs 'B', we find:

• The cost of living is higher, crime rate is lower.  
• Taxes are higher, life expectancy is longer.  
• Student/teacher ratios are lower, health is better.  
• Utilities cost less, shoes cost more. 
• Health care system works, children are more likely to be in school when they should be.
• Percent of population in prison is one-tenth of ours.
• A house costs more, the poverty rate is 80% lower.
• Potatoes and apples cost less.

Would I want to live there?  No, but just for reasons of preference.  They're good folks, I'm sure, but their winters are cold, and all my roots are here anyway.

The point of it all is to note differences and improvements that might be made.  Problems can have good solutions, perhaps more than are currently on the table in our painfully partisan discussions.  Civilizations grow and change, hopefully for the better.

Life & Conflict

A large part in letting go of fear-based behavior and personal insecurity is accepting that conflict just happens; it's normal and inevitable when there's more than one perspective involved.

NON-SOLUTIONS:  Making everybody happy. Getting through meetings without tension. Negotiating a path with no hard questions and harder answers.  Appeasement and acquiescence without thoughtful consideration of broad issues.  And at the other end of the spectrum of non-solutions we find escalation, the power play, the tantrum, and the riot act.  All are common fear-based traits in business, in relationships, and in life. Each degrades the relational context leaving worsening unresolved problems.

Conflict at work (or anywhere) is not necessarily a bad thing if you move through it productively. Work on mutual understanding (not to be mistaken with mutual agreement) of each other’s positions and recognize that even if you don't agree with someone, it typically does not mean that the relationship is in jeopardy. Accept that in conflict, the way forward is achievable, even enhanced rather than derailed. Instead of shutting it all down by avoidance, accommodation, or pointless compromise, we can profitably disagree, question, and understand.

Here’s the thing - there’s no getting around the fact that life is a full-contact sport, and if you cannot get through conflict in a healthy, productive fashion then you're life is lessened, possibly crippled. Effectively dealing with conflict is perhaps the most valuable relational skill that anyone might possess.

Marriage has the potential to be more volatile than most relationships.  Those who choose to tackle issues together rather than attack each other are likely to discover shared goals, clear values, and a pathway they can walk together.

Interestingly, most relationships including business, community, and teenagers, they all work the same way.

It took a village

It is not easy to make our way through our children's early years, but we just have to hold on until they go to school, and then the worst is over; others will step up to raising our children for us.

Then we unthinkingly relinquish the shaping or our children's mind and character to others, and we presume they'll teach the same things we would if we had the time.

Reality is otherwise, and parents are the primary fortress against a broad range of formative influences (deliberate attacks) from those who don't share our values.

• A consumerist economy will teach that having more is better, that yet just a little more will make them happy.
• A fashion-based segment will teach them that they're not attractive unless they're up to date.
• A sexually bent media segment will teach them that moral choices need not be carefully considered.
• A class-based segment will teach them that some people are superior to others based on status and wealth.
• Middle-school and high-school will teach them a narrow version of relationship skills.  They'll have little awareness of relationship outside their age group and none for cross-generational relationships.

There are so many good things about modern culture; it is a disappointing downturn to note that it serves only a portion of the people somewhat well.  Like many good ideas, it's an 80% solution that unintentionally negates a healthy and balanced perspective.  And it disenfranchises a portion of the population as well.

A broadly expansive education was once our goal.  Science, sociology, philosophy, history, math, music, and the arts; all were part of a 'well-rounded' education.  Today's thinking is career focused, however, and the push is toward marketable skill development at the expense of a healthy worldview.

It takes a village to raise a child. Hillary Clinton wrote the book whose title is attributed to an African proverb. While debate and criticism swirled around the book and author, numerous proverbs from different cultures across Africa have been noted that convey similar sentiments in different ways. In Lunyoro there is a proverb whose literal translation is 'A child does not grow up only in a single home.' In Kihaya there is a saying which translates as 'A child belongs not to one parent or home.' In Kijita there is a proverb teaching that regardless of a child's biological parents its upbringing belongs to the community.

Such thinking serves well in a community where values are shared and goals are common among the members.  You could trust another parent to tell your child the same thing you would.  Such is not the venue in which we raise our children today. Homeschooling is an emerging choice of parents who see problems in the public school agenda. And children no longer run free; it's not a safe world for them like it was fifty years ago. Why is that?  My daughter used to disappear early Saturday mornings with a dozen of her friends.  She'd come home by sunset with stories of adventures and play.  But that was in Japan, not here.

After some decades of two working parents, families are faced with the choice of relegating the raising of their children to others, or scaling back financially, and thoughtfully doing what needs to be done.  Character formation is not accidental; it's done directly and pointedly by the agencies that have access to a child's thinking.

On a side note ....

My daughter and I share a background in sociology; we wondered who would raise healthier children - the families where she taught elementary school in the inner city, or my African friends in a safe but poor country. Some of her kids had lost family members to street violence, they knew the drug trade, street violence, and prostitution was the available employment for some of their mothers.  There was no safe place for children to roam unattended. Gangs were a survival mechanism. 

My African kids, by comparison, saw little or no violence, they were safe wherever they went, they were cross-generationally connected, and everyone watched out for them.  And they were poor. But the values and goals of their community were good, and so were the kids.  

On the whole, my third-world kids are more likely to grow up intellectually and emotionally well formed and comfortably adapted to society.  They are more likely to be nobly motivated, ethically clear, and capable contributors to the community.  Interesting.

Some of our African friends at their elementary school ...