Your Odds Are

  I’ve been writing for over a decade.  Few pieces make their way to being bona-fide published for more reasons that I can cite; or speculate.  But I stumbled upon an article that mention the likelihood of winning the lotto paled other possibilities in life of happening.  One such comparison was being published in the New York Times.  It cited its professional research odds as being one in 220 of writing a New York Times bestseller, and of course you have to be an author; so don’t go off thinking all you need to do is tape crazy Uncle Earnest’s rantings about fighting in WWII (that’s double U double U two) and transcribe them into a ticket to fame and glory.  Then, those odds are just slightly better than odds of having an appendage cut off by a chain saw; (one in 4,464) again you must be operating the said chain saw, ( I think), and not a real live re-enactment of Texas chainsaw massacre (or as Arlo Guthrie would say, mass-ah-cree, if you happen to be an Alice’s Restaurant fan.)  Those odds are only slightly tipping in your favor over common concerns as finding a four leaf clover (one in ten thousand) so luck isn’t so difficult to find after all, if you’re persistent. On an ancillary note Malcom Gladwell mentioned in his book Outliers that 10,000 seems to be the magical  number of hours that shaped the Beatles into the awesome group that commanded the world of Rock and Roll for a decade; oddly that number of hours of dedication seems to create the personification of expert in most fields.

   How about fretting over dying in an asteroid apocalypse? Well chances are just one in 12,500 of that happening, and let me tell you there are thump of asteroids out there just itching to go a round with good ol’ mother earth you betcha. Getting murdered brings you a chance of one in 18,000 which means in a modern metropolitan city of over 54,000, well…it’s like that silly saying; if one in four of you is going to go insane, and three of your friends seem ok…do the math.   On the bright side you have more of a chance to write that bestseller than date a supermodel (one in 88,000) but frankly I’ve seen a lot of supermodel interviews and most of them don’t have the sense God gave a stump; once those looks are gone brother…they’re gone man, they’re gone.  Then I wondered if mixing up those statistics has a bearing? Like say, be murdered by my supermodel in a bathtub? Which the bath demise carries a one in 840,000 chance; so does one lower probability raise the other; or vice versa?  All of that to compare real life issues as becoming a movie star (one in about one and a half million chance no matter how many tap dancing lessons you had as a kid, or how straight the orthodontist got your pearly whites.) 

Or of dying left-handed, (one in four million four hundred thousand), which for me being left-handed,  had me baffled on how in heavens they could ever come up with that sort of ratio? Your tax funding dollars for federal grants at work my friends and neighbors.  My personal suspicion is the ‘researchers’ smoked ganja all year long on Jamaica until the grant deadline was about to run out so they had to regurgitate something really unique and impossible to refute: which ganja just so happens to be Sanskrit for the word cannabis, now only a pseudo intellectual would discover that.  Heck you have one chance in ten million of becoming president; that’s a fraction of how many dollars you’d need to spend to fetch the prize.  That brings me to the big-fat-prize that we all lust after; the mother of all mother lotto’s, the Powerball, in which your chance to win is equivalent to our solar system’s diameter’s in miles as to odds of winning the jackpot; way less than the above or becoming an astronaut (a little over one in twelve million; again I wonder if you were an astronaut ex-supermodel running for president what are your actual odds of hitting your objective would be? Or, maybe you could just write a New York Times bestseller on the effort and relish your good fortune. 

The Relationship Pyramid

 I was watching an interview in which a relationship expert, (aka an ex-divorce lawyer) had recently written a book on developing relationship communication.  Obviously their point of view was from witnessing what wasn’t working.  And the author made sweeping statements that serve all relationships; most of it pretty obvious.  Things like, respect, and demonstrated care are self evident to anyone who has been around for even a little while.  Yet, the discussion reminded me of reading an email about what were the most important words to use; you know what I mean; it traveled the Internet circuit forwarded from subscriber to subscriber, like the serenity prayer.  Anyway, here is my own precious-important word pyramid encompassing five levels of key words that build a monument to a sound (and fun) relationship.

  The most important word, to me is, Please. Far too often we grow accustomed to our benefits and take them for granted; that includes a partner who desires to make life easier, and even, simpler for the one they care about.  I’ve witnessed (from both sides) the sin of omission in expressing simple courtesy of asking for what we want; making the familiarity a demand for performance.  I believe being treated that way, at some sublime level, strips away the vanish of compatibility. Getting treated with dismissal and demeaning comments devalue the individual who is present by their free volition.  It’s a needful ingredient for a sense of appreciation. 

  The next two words would be sincerely expressed; I Apologize.  The author I referred to earlier also mentioned that to render an apology in the context of expressing a sincere regret for applying misinterpreted intent; (often the single source of greatest strife); as well as proposing an improved future behavior.  So it’s not just the nodding acquaintance to the phrase, “I’m sorry” that is necessarily important, as it is the attitude of explaining what will be a better behavior in the future that makes apologies work so well to soothe hurt feelings.

  Thirdly, who needs to be told the importance of uttering I love you? Yet, it’s true that not everyone speaks the same love language, as was pointed out by Gary Chapman in his book; The Five Love Languages. As it is not for us to keep speaking a language our partner doesn’t understand, but rather to coach them in ours, along with learning theirs. 

  My favorite discovery was this, You crack me up. Like rain makes plants grow, so does humor refreshes growth and vibrancy in a relationship; it dispels tension and distills confrontational attitude.  We all need help in finding the humor in life’s quirky fashion of revealing our intense and mistaken need to control that which we do not control; to command that which is not subordinate; and possess that which cannot be claimed.  When we find our way to laughter, we have found our way to coping in a world that proves itself indifferent to our complaints; our protest; our never ending demands.  Having someone help us reorient, is more precious than gold.  These, are tools enough to cultivate a precious place; a home to our hearts; a watershed to our hopes.

The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands.                                                                                     ~Alexandra Penny

Swimming Lesson

  When I was a boy of seven, we visited friends of my parents who had membership in a club that had a pool.  Both families descended on that pool one very hot summer evening, and as happens we all wander off with adequate warnings to stay out of the deep end; reason being none of us kids knew how to swim.  So I’d crawl along the edges of the pool hanging on to the cement sides until I’d get to the place where standing on my tiptoes was the only way to keep my nose above water.  Then I’d reverse my travel back the way I came and venture to the limits on the other side. While at one extreme, I stood by the filtrations outlet that blew back into the pool. Being slight of build I lost hold and was blown gently into the deeper section that was well over my head. 

        I can still recall my panic, extended arms upward I could not think of what else to do. Just as I was about to loose hope, my breath spent, my father plucked me up into his arms.  I sputtered, gasped and yes, cried in relief.  He was joking with me and teasing me for my fright, as well as lightly scolding me for not being more careful.

        I forgot that terror as the years passed my attention.  Then one summer visiting my parents I had my own son with me.  They had a pool put in for the grand children to play in when visiting.  On that day, my sister’s kids were there along with Luke all splashing about.  Luke was all of five, and securely riding a floating raft.  As we adults talked about life events, childish antics reined, and Luke had been dislodged from the raft.  To this day, twenty years later, I can still see in my mind vividly the panic on his face as he stood on tiptoes trying to keep his face above water.  My sisters tell me that I had leaped over the four-foot stand and was in the water before alarm could be made.  

I pulled my son to me with such terror invoked strength, from certain danger and placated his gasping and fearful tears.  I guess we each have those moments where we’re rescued without asking- by a fathers loving attention ~ that never stops.