'Success': Defining It In A Way That Feels Satisfying

It has become increasingly difficult, in this 'down economy', to define 'success'. It seems that many of the traditional 'markers' for success simply are not functional anymore. What it takes to achieve success, at least in the economic sustainable sense of the word, has been brought into stark relief against a background of broken dreams.

Companies no longer provide stable jobs for workers, and even if an employee displays sincere loyalty to an employer, there is no guarantee that they will not be laid off along with employees who are just around 'for a paycheck'. Employers provide fewer and fewer benefits to employees, including lesser amounts for pensions and often no health insurance (or minimal health insurance at exorbitant premiums). Skills that only a few years ago garnered good paychecks and stable employment now are meaningless as the jobs are moved overseas to labor markets where employees are willing to work more hours for considerably less pay. College students matriculate through educational systems, even 'top notch schools', with little or no chance of being employed upon graduation. Even if jobs are available upon graduation, the pay scales are often insufficient to allow the former students to live an adequate life and still pay off the student loans that allowed them to gain such supposedly 'marketable' degrees.

And those of us in our later years of employment run up against a profound paradox when seeking employment: that the person who is hired has less education and experience and profoundly fewer skills than the older, far more experienced worker. What is the criteria for seeking employment when the accumulation of one's education, experience, skills, aptitudes, and willingness to work are eviscerated by the hiring of a younger worker with far fewer skills, considerably less employment history, and half one's educational attainment (as well as half of one's age)? The excuse is that older workers will leave a job that pays a lower salary, whereas a younger worker will stay around -- but quite often the younger less experienced hire will be paid a salary that is larger than the most lucrative salary the older worker has ever made. Upon what criteria does one even seek employment when that lifetime accumulation of knowledge is treated as a 'problem' by employers, rather than as an 'advantage'?

It seems to me that since I haven't been able to find success via full-time employment (or at least not since 2002), I need to redefine success so that I can find it in my world and gain a distinct sense of pride in my life. Hence, what are the other possible indices of success?

Emotional

Like many sexual abuse survivors, who've worked long and hard on recovery via psychotherapy, I have successfully been able to achieve a significant degree of emotional health in my life. After a lifetime of being ignored or rejected by women (or at least having the 'authentic parts of Self that are different from the culturally expected' ignored by many of my intimate female partners), I have, in the past 3 1/2 years, manifested a very loving, egalitarian, equitable, sexually fulfilling and emotionally satisfying relationship with a woman. And I'm quite proud of that (as well as continue to be amazed that it finally happened, albeit late in life).

Plus, I've achieved success in terms of 'moving beyond' many of the sexual abuse, incest, and physical torture messages I received as a child. I have never abused children like my parents did and I have slowly, but gradually, become more comfortable with my 'inner Self', and all the manifestations of that Self.

Social/Political

I am successful in the social and political spheres. I have recently been told I will be nominated for my church Board of Trustees (after 23 years of being ignored by both of the churches I attended, in spite of my continual assertive statements of interest in serving). I have worked on around 65 Democratic Party campaigns since 1978 and though some have been contentious, I have a good 'success record' of getting candidates elected. I have a good number of deeply connected friends, both male and female, and I have been able to maintain friendships with several of the women I've dated over the years. Given that for many males emotionally-invested friendships are a most problematic issue, I feel quite 'successful' in this arena.

Skill and Education Acquisition

I have earned two graduate degrees and a graduate certificate, as well as have gained knowledge of a wide range of skills and aptitudes. I always assumed that education would assist me to gain employment (and for a while it did), but I can nonetheless be proud of my attainment of that education and my manifestation of those skills. The difficult part has been separating my pride of accomplishment from the results of that acquisition -- or more to the point, the downside of the expected results. I am proud of being a straight-A student when I worked on my second graduate degree, and though I'm extremely frustrated by how that degree turned out to be economically worthless (or at least employment-generating worthless), I can still take pride in the success of having gained that advanced education.

I guess my point here is that while economically I've had a lifetime of difficulty in manifesting 'success' (even when the economy was supposedly in good shape, I often had a difficult time gaining employment, in part because of my profound discomfort with the interview process), I have a lot to be grateful for concerning success in other areas of my life.

And that's important.

If I focus solely upon 'financial success' [or at least wage-generated financial success], I would be deeply depressed. And frankly depression doesn't do me a lot of good; it surely doesn't help me move on with my life. If, rather, I focus upon the other areas of my life in which I've been able to manifest 'success', then I find that I have much for which to be grateful. I have been able to survive economically in spite of a lack of wage-generated success due to having 'other income' generated on my behalf by my larger family. Given how, in this economy, many of the people who previously had success in that arena are now struggling to survive, I'm doing alright. Not economically wealthy, but surviving. And surviving to a reasonable degree.

And that's surely, at the age of 59, a distinct measure of success. Gratitude for 'what I have', rather than frustration about 'what I don't have' is an important spiritual and emotional realization. And one that will serve me well in the coming years, as I move toward an age when any ability to generate wages will be greatly diminished (due both to age discrimination and the physical inability to work).

The Mystery of Illness

Illness can be a most mysterious thing at times. Sometimes it's simply difficult to ascertain what is going on in ones body, what is causing the disease, and how to solve it. Or, how to solve it in a way that doesn't make the issue ever worse.

I've been on an Allergy Elimination Diet, that was prescribed by my doctor, for the past 3 weeks. I started on the diet because I suffer from eczema on my chest, in my ears, and on my scalp. So, I know what the problem is, but I am intolerant of most topical medications that my doctor could prescribe to resolve the issue. Hence, his suggestion that I search for a 'food solution' to the problem. (He also noted that if this doesn't work, it might do me good to look into homeopathy or acupuncture. He doesn't usually suggest these options to his patients, but both of us know I'm an unusual subject.)

At this point, the symptoms haven't subsided at all -- or at least not by appearance or symptomatic result (my chest and ears still itch and my scalp continues to 'burn' each time I wash or rinse it). The only 'overt' result has been that I've lost 15 - 20 pounds of weight (down from around 225 to 205), which is weight that I can't lose easily. I'm a fairly thin guy to begin with, so losing this weight, while it makes my stomach flatter, also lessens my energy levels. And my stomach is upset a good deal of the time, so I am using antacids more often.

I guess in the larger scheme of things, I'm not doing that badly. I don't have cancer or arthritis or some fatal disease. The eczema isn't likely to kill me, directly anyway, though it is making my life pretty miserable. I wake up with itchy ears every morning [and then tend to scratch them until my 'smarter Self' stops me, knowing it isn't going to help in the long run] and I scratch my chest more often than is even slightly healthy. And my scalp has that 'burning sensation' almost all the time, even when I haven't washed or rinsed it. Plus, my stomach upset literally 'sets me back on my heels' periodically, especially when it results in an allergic food problem, or when the stomach acid just gets to be too much. Not pleasant, but not deadly either.

Whenever I get sick for some reason or other, I become more hyperaware of 'that condition' and notice it around me in other people. There are a lot of people who are sick in my community, with conditions far worse than my own, and I become hyperaware of their conditions only when I'm feeling pretty awful myself. My intimate partner says "Welcome to the club. You've got a chronic condition, which many people have. You're a special 'case' in that you have to use alternative medicine to treat it, because you can't tolerate conventional medical solutions. But it's not likely to kill you." And my good friend in New Mexico, whom I know from the men's wellness movement, says "All the guys in my men's group talk about the ways in which their bodies are falling apart as they age. They can't urinate or defecate without pain, their bones and muscles hurt, and generally they are experiencing the whole panoply of symptoms related to getting older. Get used to it - you're getting older and your body is falling apart. Surrender to the facts while searching for temporary solutions."

I attended a performance last year by Clark Terry, the jazz trumpeter [he was 89 at the time]. On the stage, he was joking about the aging process and he barked, somewhere between laughter and pathos, that "anyone who says the Golden Years are wonderful is fooling themselves - they really suck!" That surely put it in perspective.

Frankly, I'm a bit amazed to even be alive at this point of my life (I'm 59). I was so thoroughly depressed as a younger man, due to the incest, physical torture, and emotional abuse I had experienced, as a child, in my parents' home. I spent many years deeply involved in substance abuse and alcohol dependency, which I luckily 'kicked' around the age of 32 (hence, I've been sober for 27 years now). There's no doubt in my mind that that was a great obstacle to overcome, and I did it successfully (with the help of mental health therapists and supportive friends). Which doesn't mean -- no matter how much I hope it would mean this -- that everything else in my life would work out wonderfully.

I've now been professionally unemployed since 2002 (with small short-term and part-time jobs in the interim), though I still have my 'official' status as Executive Director of the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute, which is my nonprofit, of which I'm the only employee (and an unpaid one at that). It's not that life hasn't been more positive since being sober; indeed, for the past three and a half years I had the first long term intimate relationship with a woman in the whole of my life -- a situation that I never thought would actually come to fruition. That alone tells me how much I've healed emotionally. It's just that I had hoped that sobriety would bring more 'benefits'. But as a good friend noted recently, at least I'm a 'late bloomer'. I'm happy that I've bloomed at all!!

So, back to this diet. Losing more weight (and not really trying to lose any weight) and trying to keep a positive attitude about my life in the midst of the lightheadedness. Growing older and falling apart, but trying to keep what I can 'together' in the meantime. As the saying goes, growing old isn't great, but it's better than the alternative. The 'solution' to this condition isn't readily obvious, and isn't likely to become so, but I keep plugging away, doing the best I can. Which, of course, is the best any of us can do.

Note To Readers Of This Blog

Readers of the MMWI Blog may be wondering what happened to this blog, since I had been posting regular weekly entries since August 2010. I wanted you to know that I'm still writing, but have been experiencing some physical maladies of late which have limited my ability to write weekly entries. Hopefully, those will resolve themselves in the next couple of months, but in the meantime, I do plan to write blog entries as often as I can, when I'm not feeling overtly ill.

The other point I want to note is that I'm also now a Contributing Editor [CE] for WomensRadio.com. You can view my CE profile at:

http://www.womensradio.com/users/Donald-Jeffries%2C-MPA%2C-MSW/994.html

If you want to read my column, click the 'column' tab; if you want to see my videos, click the 'video' tab. This forum should allow me greater access to readers throughout the Internet. For the present, I'm largely reprinting the blogs that have been posted here on this site, that I've written up to now, though (as noted above) I do write new ones when my health permits it.

Thank you for being active readers of this blog. Hopefully you'll access the WomensRadio.com site to follow my work. Comments are always welcome.

Discussing Trauma With A Large Audience: The Advantage of Built-in Public Relations

This past Sunday, on 60 Minutes, Sen. Scott Brown (R. - MA) openly discussed the sexual molestation he had experienced at the hands of a camp counselor when he was a youth. He said that the act 'hadn't been consummated', by which I assume he meant that penetration hadn't occurred. But clearly the senator had been emotionally scarred by the event. This, along with a very chaotic family life, made his statement that he was more open to the trauma experienced by other people quite credible.

Of course, part of the reason for the interview was that he was promoting his new book Against All Odds. He said he just wanted to 'tell people who I really am' and that's commendable, no matter whether or not the viewers were in agreement with his other political views. From a men's wellness standpoint, I felt that his willingness to talk so openly about his own sexual trauma and the sexual abuse of males was a 'step in the right direction'. It's just the kind of message that I've been trying to discuss for the last seven years via the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute. But the advantage the senator has is that, as a result of being a 'public figure', he has built-in public relations, since the citizens want to know more about the people for whom they've voted.

Indeed, it is this kind of public relations advantage that allows for the raising of public awareness about critical mental health and medical issues. I remember the way Betty Ford discussed her alcoholism and how that raised the public consciousness about that issue. Or how Bob Dole had raised the issue of erectile dysfunction and focused public attention on that medical issue. The fact that both of these individuals were already 'in the public's awareness' made their willingness to openly discuss subjects that are usually only talked about 'behind closed doors' very empowering for members of the public. It allowed other people a 'greater public space' to talk about their personal struggles with similar issues.

The one public figure who could have made good use of the 'bully pulpit' to discuss a very widespread problem in the society (but didn't) was President Bill Clinton. When the Monica Lewinsky scandal hit the press -- and, in spite of President Clinton's original denial that any 'sex' had occurred, it was later proved to have happened -- it would have been a wonderful opportunity to openly talk about the issue of sexual addiction. Apparently, from the series of articles in the Washington Post around that time, Bill Clinton's philandering was 'legendary' long before he met Hillary and continued after they were married. I remember a line from the article that "Bill's Arkansas girlfriend would be going out the backdoor when Hillary was coming in the front." The articles noted that she was willing to love him in spite of his faults [at least in part because he was one of the few men who wasn't intimidated by her intelligence], though the inference was that she could tolerate his indiscretions (regardless of whether she was emotionally hurt by those behaviors) as long as he kept them out of the public limelight.

Apparently due to possible legal problems, and the eventual close impeachment vote, though, President Clinton did not use the scandal as an opportunity to bring the issue of sexual addiction 'to the forefront of public consciousness'. Of course, it may also have been because he was unable to come to grips with his own problematic behavior and admit that he had a problem -- one that many in the public and media realized was a major concern. It was one of those 'great missed opportunities' to raise public awareness about an issue that plagues many people in our society, both men and women. While there are quite a number of reasons for this dysfunctional variety of sexual behavior, many studies point to an individual having been sexually traumatized as a child as one of the more prevalent precursor events. We know, from stories President Clinton told, that he had come from a chaotic family, but whether he had experienced sexual trauma as a child was never revealed, if it even had occurred. So, it is not clear why he was motivated to act unfaithful in his marriage, other than simply because he may have felt that, as a powerful male public figure, he 'could get away with it'.

In that regard, I remember reading a review of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson. Though I can't remember the exact wording, there as a reference to President Johnson bragging that John Kennedy 'had nothing over him in the sex department'. Apparently when Lyndon Johnson was in the Senate, he maintained an office across the hall from his official Senate office where he regularly had sex with female staffers, making ample use of the 'sexual attraction of power' that he possessed. That he was also being unfaithful to his marriage is a fact that is often overlooked and avoided.

From a men's emotional wellness perspective, I'm in no way saying this behavior is positive nor 'macho'; quite the contrary. Abuse of political and/or economic power to obtain sexual favors is simply abuse of other people. And sexual addiction is that - addiction. It is behavior that fails to honor sincere intimacy between two individuals. Often, in fact, the sexual addict 'uses' the cultural assumptions regarding intimacy for their own advantage -- getting their sexual desires met at someone else's emotional expense. In the long run, it is abusive toward the addict's mental health as well, but that realization can only arise later, when the addict engages in their own healing journey.

"Where've You Been All My Life?": Externalizing the Necessary Search for One's Self

Given all the 'sweet nothings' that we enjoy saying to each other on Valentine's Day, "where've you been all my life" is one of the most endearing of all. Deep in the midst of a current intimate connection, it speaks of a sentiment that one has toward a loved one who seems like a person whom one should have had in their lives far before now. Yet, of course, you didn't meet them before because circumstances were different, you were different, they were in a different space in their lives and, more importantly, the two of you were likely not ready for each other before now -- assuming you're ready for each other even now!

I remember a talk I heard years ago in New Mexico by Baba Ram Dass. He was talking about the complexity involved in 'falling in love'. To illustrate his point, he told a story [from his male perspective] of how a man meets a woman and they deeply connect and 'fall in love'. Several weeks later, the man is in line at the grocery store and he sees another woman and falls in love with her. And somehow, through delicate negotiation, he convinces both women to agree to a ménage a trois. But several months later the man is at a festival and he sees another woman and falls in love with her. Now, he hasn't fallen 'out of love' with the first two, he just keeps falling in love with more women. So, Ram Dass said "what one realizes is that love doesn't have to be possessive, that one can love without controlling others." He pointed out that what 'falling in love' is really about is that each of us has a 'template of love' in our mind's eye, and we're going around the world looking for someone who fits our mold for love. And when we find them, we 'fall in love' with them.

His point was that often we don't 'fall in love' due to the behavior of the other person, rather we have defined what love is for us and this other person simply fits our preconceived formulation. They haven't done anything, in particular, to motivate our 'love picture' except to tickle our self-defined imagery. This isn't to say that one's preconceived formulation can't change over time (often it does, especially with time to heal from past psychic and emotional injury or grief), but rather to note that 'love' is a self-defined, self-conceived construct, and that a large measure of 'emotional projection' [we see what we hope and expect to see] is involved in the pursuit of intimacy.

Of course, in fact our preconceived formulations of 'love' will be, to some extent, influenced by the behavior of 'the other'. The other person may have an approach to intimacy that we simply have not considered or even imagined, since it is beyond our socialization or previous experience. It is that interaction between two persons who are working on a 'mutual shared experience' [as it is in the best of circumstances] that changes our 'love vision' and may modify our understanding of intimacy. Yet, it is our experience, as we personally interpret it, that most clearly defines how each person reacts to 'being in love' with another person.

Externalizing the Inner Search for Self

We live in a consumer culture that tries to convince us that if we buy this product -- face cream, cologne, vehicle, jewelry, clothing, etc. -- or have this kind of job, or invest in this spiritual program, we will then have the wherewithal to manifest "the (other) one" in our lives. The message is that we will, with this particular product, job, or program, be able to attract another person into our lives who will 'fulfill' us.

Hence, "where've you been all my life" is a statement that, culturally, externalizes a personal experience onto 'the other' when the larger, more important and necessary journey is the search for one's Self. I would argue that the "you" in "where've you been" is more reasonably oneself and that the larger and more reasonable question needs to be directed toward oneself, i.e. "where have you (Self) been all my life?" Because if we don't have a deep enough love for our Self, we won't have enough energy -- or clarity of vision -- to 'be in love' with someone else.

My point is that the one who will truly fulfill us, in fact the only one who has any realistic possibility to fulfill us is ourselves. If we feel empty inside our hearts, all the externalizing of that emptiness isn't going to 'fill up' the vacant space.

Centered in the Self

My therapist here in St. Louis often talks about that difference between being 'self-centered' and being 'centered in the Self'. The first concept is about vanity, about getting others to satisfy your desires at their expense. The second is about caring and mutual love, about being centered enough in your heart that assisting others is more important than solely taking care of yourself. But it is critical that you know who the Self is, what it looks like, and what constitutes its many aspects, in order to have a 'sense' of what 'being centered' entails.

I remember the phrase "if you want to attract a certain kind of person in your life, you have to first be that kind of person yourself." We can't simply want someone else and have that person instantaneously appear. Wanting, alone, isn't going to satisfy the criteria. Attracting other people into your orbit will only occur if there is a solid enough 'center' in your soul. It operates much like the law of gravity: the larger the object, the greater its gravitational pull. If your 'center' is either nonexistent or fairly minimal, you won't attract much of anyone else into your orbit. On the other hand, the more you create a solid, significant and emotionally healthy Self, the more your gravitational 'pull' increases and therefore the more you can draw others into the circle of your life.

The journey to becoming 'centered in the Self' is especially difficult for trauma survivors. It often takes a very long time to understand this concept of attraction. For many years, I was so frightened of my Self -- my inner experience had been so terrifying that I couldn't get a good 'fix' on who I was -- that I couldn't attract anyone of the kind that I desired [longingly and forlornly dreamed about] because I did not have a solid center. Due to healing and recovery, as time passed my sense of Self gained more firm grounding and I was able to start attracting emotionally healthy people into my orbit. The more I became emotionally healthy (the more I became the kind of person whom I wanted), the more people appeared in my life who were themselves on the road to emotional health.

In the process of 'becoming the very person whom we want to have in our lives', we become more intimately in touch with a deeper understanding and tender relationship with ourselves. And hopefully, a willingness and ability to love [and forgive] ourselves. Having achieved that critical step -- of self-love and self-care -- we can then reach out 'into the world' and attract 'others' into our lives who we can then 'be in love with' with a greater clarity of vision. We're no longer fixated on finding people to 'fulfill our inner lives' because we've already successfully filled that life with our love of ourselves. We can begin the search for partners to walk alongside us, with whom we can "manifest a co-created shared intimacy."

Telling Our Stories Is Critical To The Journey of Healing

I attended a lecture this last week given by Tim Wise, who is an incredibly knowledgeable antiracism/diversity trainer. His talks tend to bounce around from subject to subject in a catch-all sort of way -- a style he terms as "similar to jazz improvisation." An individual leaves his presentations with their head swimming with new ideas and concepts and different ways to view the world around; simply stated, it's a pleasure and joy to hear him speak.

There were two things in particular that he discussed (among, as noted, a wide range of subjects related to diversity) that resonated with some thoughts that had been swirling around inside my head for several days since I had seen the 'new version' of the Cinema Paradiso DVD. I had seen the shorter version of the movie several years ago when it was first issued and had greatly enjoyed the story, which is why I had wanted to see it again. The story is a cross between a tribute to the joy of movie-making and the pain and frustration caused by unrequited love. For a long time, I've considered Cinema Paradiso to be one of the great (recent) movies about the love of cinema, in the same way that I've considered Babette's Feast to be one of my very favorite movies about the joy of cooking. Both, interestingly, are also about intimate love, the first a focus upon a heterosexual couple and the second about the love of friends.

Before I lose the 'thread', let me get back to the connection between Tim Wise and the movie. When I was watching Cinema Paradiso, I was struck with how the 'smitten love' between Salvatore and Elena was a kind of infatuation that I had always wanted to have when I was a younger man. I had always wanted to have a 'special girl' who considered me to be 'her special man' and who wanted to 'build a life with me.' But that story, while quite beautiful in the movie, wasn't my story no matter how much I had wanted it to be. And so, I had been thinking about how one tells their story in a way that 'makes sense of one's life' and 'gives one hope for the future'.

Tim Wise, in his lecture, talked about how "it is important that people tell their stories." In particular, he was talking about stories of discrimination and racial profiling, but he was also telling the audience how the method of telling one's story is important to the process of healing. Additionally, Tim took note of a favorite quote of his from the writer James Baldwin -- that each of us has to "earn our death" -- and what the writer meant by that. He said James Baldwin was referring to the process of living one's life in such a manner that, upon leaving this life, one had made a positive difference in the world, i.e. that an individual had 'earned their death' by living an ethical life that, in large part, involved struggling with the negative aspects of human interaction.

I've been 'sitting' with those two concepts -- the importance of 'telling one's story' and the importance of 'earning one's death' -- since his presentation last week. They strike me as critical issues in the journey of healing from sexual trauma, as well as healing from -- and moving beyond -- racial discrimination. The 'process of healing and recovery' is both about healing the wound caused by the trauma and then doing what one needs to do to move beyond the trauma. I'm reminded of a favorite quote by Margaret Young that I attach to my 'signature' when I send out email:

Often people attempt to live their lives backward: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.

As a young man who was trying to heal from the ravages of the physical torture and sexual trauma that I experienced as a child, I always wanted to be involved in a story that was more 'normal', more 'mainstream' in terms of the American Dream -- you know, dating a woman with whom I had a mutually loving and caring relationship, having it evolve into a long-term intimacy, then possibly having it lead to marriage. But it wasn't to be (or at least, it didn't happen to me, not at all in the way I had envisioned). And without going into particulars, let me say that what is important 'in the telling of my story' is being able to have a degree of personal emotional comfort with the way the narrative [of my life] did play itself out.

Indeed, in my late 30's, I did meet a woman with whom I had a very long-term unrequited infatuation [we were and remain platonic friends], and in the last several years, in my late 50's, I have met a woman with whom I've finally been able to manifest the kind of intimate, equitable, long-term, mutually loving and supportive relationship that I have desired for most of my life. In other words, as one of the characters in Cinema Paradiso notes "life isn't like the movies", no matter how one hopes that we can 'spin out' such a narrative in 'real life'.

As in the Margaret Young quote above, I, like all survivors of trauma, have had to go through the journey of discovering how to be who I really am, then doing what needs to be done, in order to have what I have desired and wanted throughout my life. Not that the point of 'having what you want' comes all at once or quite in the manner that you theorized or dreamt that it would. Life has a way of producing the story in the manner that it deems fit -- incorporating, among many others, the 'stuff happens' and 'actions often lead to unintended consequences' scenarios.

The first step -- discovering who one really is -- is probably the most difficult. Beyond the torture and sexual trauma, who is one's self? Parents often say to their children "just be yourself", but who is that!! As John Bradshaw pointed out in Bradshaw On: The Family, most Americans have no 'independent' sense of themselves, separate from the imprint of their parents, until around the age of 35. But it's also critical to make that 'discovery', to 'know thyself'. Or, as a close therapist friend of mine says "be yourself -- everyone else is taken". We're all unique, good, bad or indifferent, so it's important to manifest the best we can be.

The next step is 'doing what needs to be done', and that's where the Baldwin quote about 'earning one's death' comes into play. While it is important to heal one's own life (and often that alone consumes an egregious amount of time and energy), it is also important, if at all possible, to 'heal the wound of the world' around oneself. For me, that's where my work with the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute is manifested. It took many years of arduous and painful work to progress in my own healing (and that process will not stop until I pass from this life); simply making use of that work for myself is, for me, insufficient. I feel a strong desire to help others who have had a similar painful journey to 'move forward to the next steps' of a healing path. Other very dedicated people have assisted me in my healing. I want to 'pass forward' those lessons learned in such a way that I can help others and 'earn my death'.

We all pass from this life eventually (as is said "there's only one ticket in and one ticket out"). When I was a younger man in the pit of my victimization, I, like many sexual trauma survivors, often contemplated suicide as the 'only way out' of the malaise of my life. As my healing has progressed and become clearer and more mature, I now realize that I must 'earn my own process of dying' by living my life to the fullest, as best I can manifest that. Which doesn't mean that I will "have everything I want" [far from it] -- even if I am who I am and do what I need to do -- but it does mean that I am the master of my own narrative, of how I tell my story, even if the details of the story are beyond my control. I can't 'know' where my story will go, but as is true of all trauma survivors I am in a better position, as I continue to heal, to impact the journey that I'm taking. We were, indeed, 'out of control' as children; with recovery, that doesn't have to be true for the remainder of our story.

Environmentalism: Instead of Aiming for 'More Is Less', Let's Aim for 'Less Is Less'

Last week, I attended the St. Louis Green Confluence which was held at St. Louis University. Advertised as an event that "connects employers, educators, public policy makers and citizens for the future of our region's green economy", throughout the morning the speakers talked about bringing 'green jobs' (i.e. employment that is environmentally friendly) to the St. Louis metropolitan area that could boost the local economy and make St. Louis the 'national center for the green economy'. The information was quite educational and illuminating. Just knowing who the 'local players' are in the expanding green jobs economy was, alone, worth the effort to attend the conference, and the methodologies that are being proposed for achieving lower costs and less energy use will be extremely helpful to know for future reference.

But all day long, the speakers kept emphasizing the concept of 'more is less': that we can have 'more' commodities, more jobs, a better lifestyle, for 'less' cost in resource use and 'less' pollution of the environment by engaging in more efficient use of those resources. Which, by itself, was very positive. Yet, the nagging question in the back of my mind, all during the symposium, was "When are we, as a society, going to stop wanting more stuff?" Because if we keep acquiring more stuff, we are going to use more energy, not less!

I've been reading a number of articles lately about the 'environmental cost' to our planet of the capitalist economic model that encourages people in the United States and western Europe to continue buying more items of production. In the last decade, China and India have jumped on that bandwagon as well, and now energy use -- and environmental pollution -- are reaching record levels around the world. One report I read noted that, in order for the 'rest of the world' to have the kind of lifestyle that Americans maintain, we would have to have another 2.5 Earths available for resource depletion.

The continual 'stuff acquisition' of First World and developing economies is simply unsustainable. And the other countries, which have been poor relative to the First World economies for at least the past three hundred years, are simply not going to back away from their desire to have the kind of lifestyle enjoyed by Americans since at least 1900 and definitely since the end of WWII.

Hence, Americans are going to have to learn to live on less, not more. We can't continue to burn up the resources of the planet to support our profligate lifestyle, even if we engage in more efficient use of the resources that are available. Under present circumstances, Americans are 6% of the world's populations and we use 50% of it's natural resources; western Europe constitutes another 6% of the world's population and uses [more efficiently] another 30% of the planet's natural resources. Which leaves 20% of the resources for the remaining 88% of the world's population. That is clearly unsustainable, as well as being frightfully unfair to everyone else on the planet. And whether or not one worries about 'fairness', that inequitable distribution and use of resources creates a security concern, since the rest of the people on our planet are increasingly aware of and angry about the level and extent of the inequity. The critical question, though, is: Can we restructure our economy in such a way that it is sustainable without continually growing larger?

Our 'more is less' mentality reminds me of something my intimate partner recently told me about an article she had read. Apparently, the obesity epidemic in America has not been much affected by the expansion in the availability of low-fat foods. Americans appear to believe that since many foods are lower in fat content, they can simply eat more food, rather than eating the same amount for less caloric intake. Additionally, many of the fast food outlets offer bigger portions for less money, since they are supplementing the meat content with low-cost soy-based substitutes and using greater quantities of factory-raised cows, pigs, and chickens, thereby giving the customers the ability to purchase even more food than they ate before. This isn't helping to counteract the obesity epidemic -- clearly, it's making it worse. It is also negatively impacting our healthcare costs.

Of course, in many ways, eating more food, or buying more stuff, or using more resources is avoiding the more important issue. We live in a culture where people feel empty in their souls, and they are trying to fill that emotional emptiness with external commodities. It won't work, it is unsustainable, and it is destroying the world in which we live. There is no point in trying to fill the empty place in your heart if the world in which your heart thrives is being polluted to the point of causing your heart (and the planet's heart) to fail.

It's all an addictive cycle -- a concept that many authors have written about, none more persuasively than Anne Wilson Schaef in When Society Becomes An Addict. As she notes, we as a society have become addicted to our 'stuff', to having more 'stuff'. As a society, we have reached a point whereby conspicuous consumption is an end, in and of itself. This is not to ignore the fact that many people really don't even have the basic survival needs covered, but rather to point out that survival, once achieved, is insufficient to satisfy the craving. It's sort of like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs gone berserk. As an American society, we are addicted to more and more and more 'things', bigger houses, more land, more substances, more food, more power.

For the last several millennium, the focus has been on "man's conquest and control of nature" -- supposedly, that's what the rise of civilizations is all about. But, with global warming causing melting polar caps, rising sea levels, hotter summers and colder winters, more tornadoes, hurricanes and typhoons, and generally more freakish weather patterns, nature is clearly fighting back. Unless we, as a society, can learn to live on less and be satisfied with less, we are going to have more problems, including more environmental crises.

Hence, I propose that instead of focusing our efficient use of resources on 'more is less', we begin aiming for 'less is less'. Use less resources more efficiently and be satisfied with 'less' -- and construct an economic model based on those changed realities that, indeed, is sustainable.