Ask Jonathots … May 12th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2932)

My daughter is in the first grade. She’s always been very shy and insecure, which her father and I have been trying to address with encouragement. But the school psychologist tells me she’s developing a neurosis and I should take her to a psychiatrist. What is a neurosis?

Being neurotic is having a fear of the edge of a cliff which is in front of you.

Psychotic is thinking that the edge of the cliff is chasing you.

But there is a situation where we become so afraid of the edge of the cliff that we keep backing away from it while increasing our trepidation and limiting our possibilities.

Although I am sure there are psychological and physiological reasons for people to be afraid, normally in the case of a child, these insecurities are caused by hesitation, which is accepted by parents who don’t want to “push” their children.

There is a certain amount of jeopardy necessary if we want to grow instead of falling back into intimidation.

What do I mean?

Let’s say your little daughter takes piano lessons. She comes home at the end of the first lesson and says, “I don’t like piano.”

So you ask her to go a second week, but she has even less passion–so when she returns from the lesson and is nearly in tears over being pressured into doing this adventure, you give in and let her quit.

She’s relieved.

You feel you’ve done a good thing because she’s no longer terrified. But terrified is not a position of life–rather, it’s a reaction to it. And if you don’t live enough, you gradually become horrified by things that used to be enjoyable. This is where we develop a neurosis.

You’re catching this at the right time.

We’re not trying to turn all of our children into concert pianists, Broadway dancers or professional athletes. But we are trying to teach them to begin something, muddle through the middle and finish it the best they can.

Success does not go to the world’s most talented people. Success is achieved by those who are still around when the awards are handed out.

So let me make three quick suggestions:

1. Sign a contract.

In other words, if your daughter wants to take piano lessons, make her sign a contract that says she will stay with it for two months. Hold her to it.

2. Encourage what is encourageable.

Children are not stupid. They know when we’re insincere and when we really think they might have done something good. Point out what seems to be growing without criticizing what is lacking.

3. Learn to ask why.

If your child says she’s afraid, have her verbalize the source of her fear and explain why she thinks that is acceptable or why she believes it needs to change.

Fears are not alleviated by conquering them, but rather, by talking about them so we’re in the right mindset to begin to address the problem.

If you do these three things while she’s still young, she won’t become convinced that she’s just not “a particular type of person.”

I can always recognize someone who’s poorly trained. They will begin a discussion by telling you what they aren’t instead of stepping forward with what they are.

The producers of Jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

 

Untotaled: Stepping 38 (Fall of 1967) Parallel Universe… November 1, 2014

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2399)

(Transcript)

1967.

Fall came. Fall fell.

It seemed to me that the autumn leaves, as they tumbled from the trees, were mocking me for my lack of purpose.

I was bored.

I was also infested by a scratchy discontentment–an itch. I wanted my driver’s license. I was so close.

Even more infuriating was that Jack, from my class, had gotten his license because he’d flunked the sixth grade and was older than the rest of us. Sporting his beat-up Chevy, he drove as a god among us. Suddenly a fellow that normally made the lasses of our class say “yuck” when he walked by was the center of attention from these fair young maidens. Everybody wanted to ride in Jack’s car.

It was aggravating to any young boy in Central Ohio with a shred of dignity and an overabundance of arrogance. That would be me.

I convinced my older brother to take me to a parking lot behind the high school on Sunday afternoons to practice driving, since we knew that the local cop was always at his church teaching the youth group during that time.

The terrifying part of the whole rehearsal was the spectre of having to pass the test on parallel parking. Some local citizen had placed two markers in the back lot by sticking a broomstick in a bucket of cement so that teenagers could put themselves through the paces of trying to place a two-and-a-half ton automobile into the tiny enclosure.

I think what frightened me the most was that I heard through the grapevine that you had to get your tires within six inches of the curb or you would fail. Who could do such a thing? This was a deed more suited for the gods of Chrysler.

But finally, since clocks do move forward, December 18th rolled around and I went to get my license.

As it turned out, I was the last prospect of the day for an instructor who was on his way home to Pennsylvania for Christmas. He was giddy, overjoyed and in a hurry.

The whole test took three-and-a-half minutes–and there was no parallel parking.

Being a stupid teenager, I asked him why we had skipped it. He looked at me, bewildered, like a man who had given a friend a thousand dollars and was wondering why his buddy was commenting on the wrinkles in the bills. He smiled, patted me on the shoulder and said, “Good luck, and drive safely. And Merry Christmas.”

I was a licensed driver. I, too, could be a god–even though it was going to be God Two in our school.

What did I learn during this experience? What lesson concerning worry and trepidation was passed on to me about how life is never what we think it’s going to be?

Well, since I have a tendency to adhere to an unnecessary parcel of negativity, what did I learn?

Not much.

 

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

 

The Sermon on the Mount in music and story. Click the mountain!

 

Click here to get info on the “Gospel According to Common Sense” Tour

Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.

Click here to listen to Spirited music

Untotaled: Stepping 9 — Goodnight, Sweet Prince (November 12th, 1965) … April 5, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog  

(2195)

(Transcript)

I was scared.

Normally, I was ecstatic to visit my grandpa’s house, because after a brief series of greetings and obligatory, slobbery kisses, I was allowed to go into the nearby living room where there was a large, brown horsehair couch–my favorite perch. I loved to rub my legs against the scratchy surface. It was a delicious brown–caramel, chocolate and orange soda, all “splurged” together.

But on November 12th, 1965, arriving at Grandpa’s home, it was a much different scene.

As always, I was greeted at the door by Queenie, his collie, who was overly zealous and friendly, and always smelled–well, pardon the cliché–like wet dog.

This time there was no greeting from Gramps. Instead, we found him in the living room, kneeling over Irma, whose breathing was laborious, was white as a sheet and had creamy drool dribbling out of the corners of her mouth.

Grandpa was crying.

My mother moved to his side to comfort him, and I stared at the suffering lady. I didn’t know much about Irma–she never talked. I mean literally, I had never heard her speak.

She was passed off by my Grandpa as his houseguest/friend/maid/cook. I heard relatives refer to her as “retarded, evil, a slut and a foreigner.” Absent understanding of what many of these words meant, my interpretation was to just stay away.

Irma seemed to have no problem with our distant relationship, so on this horrible day, when my beautiful, brown horsehair couch was turned into the deathbed of this strange woman, I heard my mother utter these words: “Jonathan, come over and say good-bye to Irma.”

Yes, this was a day and age when people actually died in their homes without heroic measures.

I thought to myself, “Say goodbye? I’ve never said hello.”

I eased over to her side and touched her forehead. It was clammy and cold. I jerked back and then was embarrassed by my revulsion.

“Goodbye, Irma,” I managed, and then shuffled out of the room.

Two weeks after Irma died, my mother went out to console Grandpa and spend the night, and they placed me on the brown couch to sleep. They turned off the light and I was left in the room with the memories of Irma and her demise.

I was so frightened.

Lying there on the couch, I thought I could smell her. It was horrible. Squeezing my pillow tightly, I prayed.

“God, I’m scared. Please take the scare away.”

I don’t remember anything after that. I went to sleep and woke in the morning without any signs of the previous night’s terror.

I was transformed–not just for that occasion. I can mark that night as the time when much of the childish apprehension, insecurity and trepidation departed from me, like a vapor, leaving a boiling pan of water.

I was stronger.

I would never, ever be that afraid again.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Click here to get info on the “Gospel According to Common Sense” Tour

Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.

Little is Big on a Bad Day … February 15, 2013

(1,792)

Pictured above is the Miakka School House, a historical landmark which I photographed last night during my visit to the tiny community, which is strategically enclosed in the greenery and mushiness of Central Florida.

You might suspect that in person, the schoolhouse does not appear to be psychedelic. I have enhanced it. Some people would say I’ve distorted the image. Such is life. Rarely do we get a glimpse of an image in actuality before our minds take it over and attempt to either enhance it, or in a fit of frustration, distort it.

I will tell you this of a certainty–very few people have their lives ruined by a disaster–mainly because disasters are rare. It is much more likely to have your life altered, devastated or left barren by a little thing that is blown out of proportion than it ever is by being struck by lightning. The human tendency to take “little things” and make them “big” simply because “we’re having a bad day” is what renders us fearful, suspicious and often frozen–unable to move forward.

Our upbringing doesn’t help. Adding to the trepidation are the number of murders offered on television as evidence of a cruel society. And honestly, just the human tendency to think that evil is more intriguing than good causes us to swing to the dark side. I guess it would be harmless if it weren’t so harmful. But it is often in the midst of our false concerns that we fail to recognize a true opportunity, which ends up leaving us with a mess.

How can we keep from distorting the facts presented to us? Or just as bad, from trying to enhance everything in order to make it look better, ending up with a bizarre representation?

First of all, I think we have to admit to ourselves early in our morning that we are ill-prepared for the day and have set our feet toward being a dunderhead. Sometimes I even give those around me the gracious warning that I am a ticking time bomb of stupidity.  Amazingly, often that is enough to shake us out of our dim-wittedness.

Yes, merely confessing “I’m having a bad day” sometimes changes it into a good day. But if you continue to walk around in a foul mood, insisting there is nothing wrong with you, it’s everybody around you doing “stinky work,” you can set in motion the beginnings of a real disaster.

“I’m having a bad day. Please, someone help me.”

And since you know you’re having one of those bad days, and you are susceptible to making everything little too big, don’t make any decisions without asking three questions:

1. Have I done this before? Is this situation in front of me, which seems so foreign and problematic, really just an opportunity that I’ve previously handled, wearing a different hat? You will be surprised at how encouraging it is to remember former successes.

2. If this did happen before, what did I learn from it? Most people think that the brain remembers things because we see something that triggers memory. Actually the brain only remembers things when we ask it to retrieve similar occurrences. The brain is not helpful, just available. So if you don’t ask your brain to dredge up the past, it will lock it up solutions like they’re in solitary confinement. What did I learn the last time?

3. And finally, what is different with today? Occasionally something will be unique in your present dilemma. But usually not. Generally speaking, the only thing separating today’s frustration from yesterday’s clear-headedness is a bad night’s sleep, nightmares or low blood sugar. What is different?

By the time you finish asking these three magical questions, having already admitted  having a bad day, you have much less chance of turning something little into something big, distorting the image set in front of you. It is a problem we humans encounter incessantly. Therefore, it would be a good idea to have a plan of action for handling it.

Because of the rainy, drippy weather, only a handful of determined souls made it out from the Floridian rural countryside to our concert last night. I drove a long way to get there. So I was tempted to take something little–like poor attendance–and make it a big thing. Instead I asked myself the questions:

• Have I been here before? Yes, and every time that I remained faithful, it’s always been beautiful.
• What did I learn? Whether you and I are in front of eleven people or eleven thousand, it makes no difference if I am sharing in a bad mood. So buck up.
• What is different? Me. I am different because now God has given me the grace to ask these miraculous questions instead of dumping bad attitude along the side of the freeway like I’m running away from town to escape an eviction notice.

You don’t need to enhance your life and you certainly don’t need to distort it. Just stop making little things big–just because you’re having a bad day.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity