Toxic Kindness

You may have noticed I’ve been absent lately and the few of you who stop by now and again have my sincere apologies. I won’t bore you with my life except to say that a promotion to a new role at work has left me with far less time than I’d like to devote to ToxicKindness.

In addition to my day job, I’ve undertaken a new venture. Basically, I’ve realized that I don’t really enjoy what I do for a living. I’m good at it. I have a talent for working with people and I sincerely enjoy helping people. But I long ago stopped enjoying the field of work I’m in.

Join the club, right? Who doesn’t get fed up with their jobs. I agree. Only, in my own case, I’d like to at least take a shot at doing something about it and maybe help a few people out of their own career misery in the process. And, no, I don’t mean by finding yet another job doing more of the same elsewhere.

When you bottom line it, the companies we work for pay us less than we are worth. That’s fine. They deserve a profit, after all. They assume the risk of owning and running a company. They assume the expense of leasing office space. I’m ok with them getting their bonus. I’m not ok with the wholly imbalanced level of things in my particular case, though. There’s an imbalance in the world that keeps growing. The Haves keep getting more and the Have Nots keep finding themselves with less. Solution? Become a Have who sincerely wants to benefit the Have Nots.

I was researching consulting companies in the US and learned that a technology or financial consulting company paying an employee $50/hour is likely billing them out to clients for between $250-350/hour. Now, that employee probably doesn’t mind much if they don’t think about it. $50/hour is great money! But when you do the math and realize that she is worth 5 to 7 times what that company is willing to pay her, it deflates that bubble of satisfaction a bit, doesn’t it? And, no, that’s not my salary.

I decided my time is more valuable if applied to working for ME than it is when spent working for somebody else. I’ve also decided there are plenty ways to earn money out there and the internet is a resource that has made these options more attainable to your average person than ever before.

I further decided that it would be fun to try out different methods of earning money (on and offline) and learning from mistakes and experience (I love a good mistake now and again because that’s when you really learn things). Finally, I found myself grinning at the thought of how great it would be if my experiences could translate into learning opportunities for others. Wouldn’t it be incredible if something I tried, wrote about and explained in detail to others gave somebody I’d never met the opportunity to change their lives for the better?

If I earn a few extra dollars from my efforts, it’ll have been a fun experience. If I wind up earning a living from my efforts, it will have been a life changing series of events. If I help others accomplish the same along the way, I’ll feel my life has had a purpose beyond fixing somebody’s network a thousand miles away (yes I know the guy with the network problem is glad to have me around but that’s just not the legacy I want to leave behind).

I love helping people out. It’s just the best feeling in the world when you know you’ve changed somebody’s day for the better and that they are now likely paying the same forward. I enjoy it when I save an office, a business unit or even just a single person from some electronic hell they’ve found themselves in. But what if I could help a financially struggling family put a few extra meals on their table or to buy some extra toys for their kids? What if I could help a retiree who didn’t have enough saved in retirement to find a way to bring in an extra $20, $80, $500 or $5000 a month? What if somebody applies what I learn, strikes it rich and then feels he can finally afford to really make a difference with his favorite charity?

Money does not buy happiness. But to deny it is a vital component of modern living is to live in a dream world. When society has reached the point in which even WATER costs money, you know that the coin of the realm has been irrevocably interwoven into our lives.

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately, folks - building a new blog titled Self Employed or Bust with the objective in mind of finding my own financial independence and helping others do the same along the way. No, I’m not selling anything there. Every bit of advice will be offered free of charge and my earnings will only come from ad revenue and reviews (of things like books on the subject of finance). Maybe it’ll succeed, maybe it’ll flop. Either way, it will have been a worthwhile effort with some valuable lessons gained along the way and the potential to have helped others.

And if I make it… if my dreams come true and the hard work pays off, I hope to leave a trail of equally rewarded people along the way. All of them better off because I got a little too fed up with my job. Now that’s what I call a legacy.

But don’t worry, this isn’t goodbye. If anything it’s, “hi, I haven’t forgotten about ToxicKindness or the friends I’ve made here and I’ll be back more often as the ball gets rolling on this other thing.” So check back soon for more of my opinionated take on what a little love for others can do for the world. I’ll have more of it to spread around soon.

Quitting is hard. I’ve even found myself struggling with conflicting emotions when departing a job I truly hated. True, freedom may be right around the corner, but there’s often something that kept us at our hellish job for as long as we were there.

Perhaps a single coworker you’ve befriended has made the job worth enduring. Sometimes a nice steady paycheck keeps you around despite your frustration with a psychopathic boss. Maybe the commute is great or the convenience to your spouse provides the perfect car pooling opportunity.

Whatever your reasons for sticking around at a job you truly despise, it’s almost always in your best interest to move on if you hate working there. A post at Self Employed or Bust entitled 10 Good Reasons to Quit Your Day Job does a good job of explaining what is and isn’t reasonable to endure.

The theme also touches on something I’ve argued here before - be kind to yourself. As noble as loyalty may be, it is as pearls before swine when applied to many modern businesses. Companies devoted to the bottom line and stockholder satisfaction care little about the workers who keep them in business. You are more deserving of your loyalty than they are.

If terminating those employees will add to a company’s revenue, expect it to happen. With that in mind, be kind to yourself and only extend deserved loyalty. Adhere to the rules, do the best you can while you work there but never pass up a better opportunity out of misplaced loyalty. Your company likely wouldn’t do you the courtesy if the roles were reversed.

Is there anybody out there NOT aware of the hooplah surrounding Obama’s association with Reverend Wright and his anti-American rhetoric? The one or two of you who raised your hands might want to hang up the kayak and camping gear and catch up with the news.

Ok, how about this…

How many of you are aware of McCain’s association with anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-gay and anti-Islamic religious leaders by the names Parsley and Hagee? If I could see your raised hands, I wouldn’t be surprised to see less of them.

It seemed the controversy surrounding Wright’s “God damn America” comments was impossible to get away from and its impact on Obama was as relentless as a tsunami. The presidential candidate was eventually forced to renounce his controversial endorser. In contrast, the impact of the double-punch Hagee/Parsley rhetoric on McCain was a mere ripple on the pond.

While McCain has taken the same inevitable approach and distanced himself from individuals whom he once thanked for inspiration and leadership, the resulting campaign impact has been apparently negligible for the Republican nominee. One can’t help but wonder why.

I suspect the conservative argument would focus on association. Obama’s links to Wright ran comparatively deep. But if guilt by association is the theme of campaign mud-slinging then I’m forced to ask who gets to decide just how much association constitutes a sufficient amount to equate to guilt? McCain did, after all, profess deep respect and admiration for his own personal associative blemish, going so far as to thank one of them for their leadership. I feel that, were the shoe on the other candidate, those comments would have been very much held against Obama.

So why did McCain escape mostly unscathed? Did he bow out with more grace? Did he disassociate more expeditiously? Did Wright’s comments, coupled with his endorsement of an African-American candidate, strike fear into the hearts and small minds of some bigoted (in or out of the closet) and vocal Americans fearful of an uprising? I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.

Wright’s statements were offensive in the extreme. I bleed red, white and blue and felt my blood boiling when I heard his comments repeated on news story after news story. Then I calmed down and gave the matter the consideration it was due and found I can sympathize with the context, if not the comment. Any of us who are not black have little place pretending to understand the pain and frustration endured by African-Americans who, to this day, still battle against inequality and bigotry. Should we be shocked that it sometimes boils to the surface in a spate of poorly chosen words spoken in the heat of rhetorical passion? Context is always important and was notably overlooked in this case.

Let’s turn the tables for a minute. For the record, Hagee has called the Catholic Church “The Great Whore,” “the anti-Christ,” and a “false cult system“. He has further stated “All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.” [NPR Fresh Air, 9/18/06] That’s got me wondering when a hurricane will make it to Vegas. Then there’s this gem “Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.” [God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters, Sarah Posner]

Now, in response to Hagee’s endorsement (and remember this is a lesson on the importance of context) McCain said this - “Well I think it’s important to note that pastor John Hagee who has supported and endorsed my candidacy supports what I stand for and believe in.” Does that honestly sound like a man running for president? No. And the reason it sounds off is because there’s a follow-up sentence which reads “When he endorses me, it does not mean that I embrace everything that he stands for and believes.” Takes on a different feel when you include all the facts, doesn’t it?

I will ask you, dear reader, to keep this particular facet of the campaign in mind as things ramp up and the two nominees finally glove-up and hop in the ring to duke it out. With one character smear after another soon to be grabbing the headlines, remember just how lopsided by opinion, press-play and soundbite-worthiness things become when the media gets hold of a juicy controversy. If you fall for it, you are being played. Think for yourselves and make sure you pay attention to the facts, not spur of the moment feelings and opinion encouraged by a media with profitable, controversy-driven attention in mind or an opposition with a clear agenda of seeing their candidate in office rather than yours.

By David Hobbs - June, 2008

There is nothing more immune from the condition of mediocrity bred by familiarity than a mom.

A boy can spend hours in the back yard learning how to throw the perfect spiral pass under his father’s patient coaching. He will spend years cheering or jeering in front of the TV, mimicking his father’s enthusiasm for football every Sunday. His father could attend every high school and college game, not missing a single one. But should the day come that the boy grows up and plays the game professionally himself… the minute the camera turns to him after he runs in the winning touchdown, what does the boy say? You know the answer so say it with me… “Hi, Mom!”

But sometimes fate conspires against even the bond between mother and child.

I lost my mother at the age of six. The sum of my memories of her can be counted on one hand. My life before her passing is a jumble of confused and disordered images that make little sense to me. I assume that’s a defense mechanism desperately thrown up to defend a little boy from a suffering too profound to endure. I simply erased virtually everything prior to her death. By virtue of that, I like to think I’m actually six years younger than my chronological age because those missing years just don’t count.

Those of you who have grown up without a mother in your lives don’t need me to explain the experience. Those of you who haven’t suffered the loss will be hard pressed to understand. In short, though, you spend your entire life - even into adulthood - feeling a profound absence. Without a nurturing substitute to help bridge the maternal gap, you spend your youth feeling horribly incomplete. Something has been amputated but there are still phantom sensations to remind you of what you’re missing. If you lose her early, you find it a challenge to define just what it is you’re missing. There’s no frame of reference from which to work.

If you are lucky, sooner or later, you’ll accept the loss. My break came late into my twenties. It was a day with no shortage of bad on the shelves and I had unlimited credit so I stocked up. Everything that could go wrong did. A relationship took one of its last dying breaths. I came to recognize the fruitlessness of a job into which I’d been pouring my heart and soul. Money was tight. Bills were stacked high. All I wanted was a little bit of comfort; an understanding or sympathetic ear. All I wanted, for once in my life, was a hint of unconditional love. It was nowhere to be found.

And just like that I realized what had been lacking all my life and how utterly, deeply, totally and profoundly I missed my mom.

I’ll spare you the details but it was a very rough night spent in solitude that ultimately represents the close of one chapter in my life and the beginning of another. For all the unpleasantness, it was a new beginning complete with the realization that I wasn’t invincible and didn’t have to be. It was, belatedly, the personal acknowledgement that I was perfectly entitled to feel sorry for myself for a little while so that I could put the loss behind me and move on. Took me long enough to get there but at least I finally made it.

I won’t tell you I no longer felt the loss after that day. The phantom sensations came and went much as before. But I finally came to terms with what life had handed me and grew up a little and the pain was something I could, if not entirely embrace, accept rather than run away from.

Fast forward a decade and some change and you’ll find me happily married. As an only child with no parents of my own, it came as a bit of a shock to my system that I suddenly had not just a wife but parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. I have great affection, admiration and respect for them all but in my typical analytical way I found myself really thinking about what it meant to have a mom in my life again.

See, I finally figured out some of what was missing. Those of you with a mother might be surprised by this but, all along, it was the knowledge that there’s always somebody out there worrying about you.

That’s what moms do. They worry that you’re working too hard. They worry that you aren’t sleeping enough. They worry that you aren’t eating healthy food, dressing appropriately for the weather, pursuing your dreams, finding happiness, living up to your potential, and on and on and on. As frustrating as that might be to those of you who have had a mom around all along, I absolutely revel in the novelty it. To me it’s like manna from heaven. It’s simply the most miraculous, wonderful, comforting feeling in the world to know that there is somebody out there with that much invested in my well being that she’ll actually sit around thinking about how I am!

Sounds crazy? Think about it a bit. No matter what the world throws at you, there’s somebody there who cares. When it seems that everything and everybody in the world is conspiring against you, there’s one person you just know is on your side. Even if she disagrees with what you say or do or advises you in a direction you don’t want to go, it’s done out of love and concern for your well-being. That’s simply the most comforting and reassuring thing I can imagine. And my mother-in-law… no, my MOM, actually does that stuff! She worries about me!

I don’t think of my mother in law as an “in law.” As far as I’m concerned she is every bit my mother as had she raised me from birth. Heck, she’s been in my life longer than the woman who did give birth to me. I will always hold on to the handful of memories I have of my birth mother because I know in my heart she was a loving woman deserving of the limited honor I can pay her. But I no longer suffer that phantom pain and something just as wonderful has grown in the place where that severed part of my childhood once resided.

It is the love I feel for a woman who has blessed my marriage to her daughter and taken me into her family and heart as were I her own child. It is the love I feel for my wonderful, loving, worrying mom.

I promise I’ll try to eat healthier food, Mom.

Love,

Dave

We didn’t grow up as brother and sister.

 We never had pillow fights. I never gave you zerberts or Indian burns. We didn’t run downstairs together on Christmas day, flush with excitement over brightly wrapped gifts or stay up late, lying on the floor in our PJs, to watch TV. There were no late night chats in our bunk beds or bleary-eyed mornings waiting for the school bus together. I never called you a stupid girl. You never called me a dumb boy.

You were never excluded from my fort for the simple crime of being born female or shooed away when you tried to tag along when I went out to play with my friends. I didn’t splash you excessively at the pool, tear the heads off your dolls or try to convince you the Boogeyman lived in your closet.

We never fought over imaginary borders in the back seat of the car on long family trips. We never fought over what channel to watch, whose music was lame or whose turn it was to do dishes. I never had the chance to roll my eyes at you when grudgingly letting you have the last slice of pizza.

I never got to teach you how to ride a two wheeler, defend you from a school bully or tell you it’d get better with a hug when you came home crying after a bad day at school. As we grew older, I never yelled at you for hogging the bathroom or had the chance to tell your boyfriends to treat you right or else. I never made a fool of myself trying to impress your girlfriends and never crossed the line by asking one of them out on a date.

I didn’t have a chance to look at you with indifference when you came down in your prom dress, pretending, “whatever” when I really thought you looked beautiful. I was never in the position to pretend I wouldn’t miss you when I went away to school or moved away from home. I didn’t get to tell you I loved you before our lives took us in separate, grown-up directions.

Born half a world away and to entirely different parents, I never had the chance to do any of those things with you as we grew up unaware of one another and I regret missing every stupid moment. The opportunities of youth have passed; the chances for bonds formed by years of barely-survived sibling hostility are gone. We weren’t brother and sister.

But by virtue of marriage, you are my sister now and there are many years to come. With that in mind -

Expect me to someday throw a pillow at you, give you an Indian burn or ambush you with an unexpected zerbert (quite possibly all three in rapid succession). We’ll let your kids have all the excitement on Christmas day but we’ll live vicariously through them. We’ll stay up late on a group vacation somewhere in the world someday and watch TV in our PJs or just sit up and chat, getting to know each other better. I won’t call you, “stupid girl,” if you don’t call me, “dumb boy.”

The doors to my fort are always open to you and I’d rather leave my friends behind than leave you behind. Maybe someday there’ll be a splash-fight in a pool, but your dolls will always be safe from me and I’d kick the Boogeyman’s butt if he tried to mess with you (he really is in your closet, though. Don’t tell George).

We won’t have to fight over imaginary borders in the back seat of cars and we can watch whatever you want on TV, but your music is still lame and it’s still your turn to do dishes (and always will be). If you still don’t know how to ride a bike, give me a call.

There are no more bullies in your life but the point still stands; nobody better mess with my baby sister and should the sacrifice of my life ever be required to preserve yours, I’d consider the price a bargain. Since your husband is the only one to suffer, you can hog the bathroom all day, for all I care. As for threatening your boyfriends, tell him to treat you right or else.

Instead of girlfriends, I made a fool of myself in front of your sister (and still do so just about every day). Rather than ask your friends out on dates, I married your sister. I figure that’s close enough.

If you’re crying at the end of a bad day, it’ll get better. I promise. Hugs are redeemable in person and at your leisure.

You’re always welcome to the last slice of pizza.

I do miss you when I’m away.

You’ll always look beautiful in any dress.

And, yes, I do love you. Sorry we didn’t grow up together. We missed out on some fun times (and some awesome fights). But regardless the distance and delay, you’ll always be my baby sister and we’ve got plenty time to play catch-up.

 There is you and then there is nothing. Absent you, no laughter, no smiles, no silliness, no joy. Absent you, no peace, no calm, no comfort. I found in you the lesson that we learn not only through adversity, but also through great fortune. I’ve found in you a lover, a companion, a confidant, a kindred spirit and a best friend.

You’ve taught me to laugh at myself. You’ve taught me to laugh at life. You’ve even taught me to laugh at others but to do so without malice or spite but, rather, with a light-hearted joy at the comedy that is life and the knowledge that we are all just pratfall actors in a sitcom.

You’ve convinced me to let my guard down again and have never once given me cause to regret it. You are the only one I ever completely relax around. You’ve shown me what unconditional love really is. You’ve filled my life with peace, comfort, contentment and joy.

You have filled the last emptiness in my life, bringing me a father, a mother, a sister and a brother. I never knew how empty my life was without them until you filled that void.

I see your infinite capacity for love every day you play with our dogs and cat. I see your nurturing and loving heart in your affection for them. I’ve never known as big or warm a spirit as yours. I’ve never known anybody who recognized the pure innocence in an animal’s intent the same way I do until I met you.

I never grow tired of being with you. I’ve never known anyone as expressive as you. I never grow bored of looking at you. When you aren’t aware, I sneak looks at you and grin as your face lights up during a funny show. When I’m not in the same room, I find myself smiling from the other room at the sounds of you cheering on the Yankees or laughing at sitcoms. Were you to go away forever I’d as soon be deaf. I couldn’t bear the absence of the sound of you in my life.

I’ve always wondered if there is a point in life when we recognize we’re done and have accomplished all the important stuff; found the end of the book and everything from that point forward is just plot wrap-up and decorative touches. That day came for me on a sunny day in late October 2000. It was the day I took the plunge, let down the last bit of armor, abandoned my fear-induced self-preservation tactics learned from one too many failed relationships and slipped a ring on your finger. The most important things in my life have been wrapped up. In all the years since that day I have never once regretted taking you as my wife. I have never wished for a different life. I have never felt more at peace. I have never been more in love.

This blog is about kindness. An outsider reading this might think I’m writing this post as a kindness to my wife. I’m not. I am, instead, celebrating the kindness she has shown me by letting me join her on the greatest journey of my life. One that feels like it only started yesterday and one I want to never see come to an end.

I love you, Kathleen. Thank you for filling up my heart. I’ve never loved a better woman and I’ve never had a better friend.