I see you… as you look at the title of this blog and say “Huh?”
and “WTF?”
Perhaps this is precisely ‘why’ I am writing it… because it
is needed.
So yes, I am going there in a very fundamental/elementary/pedestrian way to bring this home to those who need to understand it from another place.
So yes, I am going there in a very fundamental/elementary/pedestrian way to bring this home to those who need to understand it from another place.
I will start by being HUMAN and say, it has been a tough few
weeks. I have not been online as much as
I had hoped and my blogs have thinned in frequency, as I honor my soul for a
bit to take care of some things stirring within.
This week, there was an electrical fire. My modem started smoking and blew up. This is not due to its age or by my hand,
this is due to a power outage. When the
power came back on…. It fried, along
with my phone and other electronics, despite being attached to a surge suppressor.
This power outage was not due to any storm or due to Mother
Nature or even some freaky turn of events; this was a scheduled power outage. However, one flick of a switch and your life
can be derailed in an instant. It is not
your fault, however you feel helpless when things happen all at once. This is similar to when we had El Nino and my
roof caved in, I was sitting on the floor collecting rain in buckets and forced
to wait, while fighting the flu and the waitlist to be helped was a mile long
as I was not the only one.
After overcoming a 14-hour day in Los Angeles, a bout with
food poisoning, this sudden event was already piled on top of coming off my writing
a 436-page book in twenty-nine days (to which a friend said, "is that all?" - and was serious about it, not even sarcastic), with the post office losing it for ten. I still showed up vibrant to provide the ‘atta
girl’ and ‘atta boy’ support, cheer and lifeline of service to clients, family
and friends, whom require weekly validation and reinforcement, without many
knowing what was going on ‘behind the scenes’ of my life.
Limping to this place is not new. It has been my life and somehow, I manage to
resurrect laughing while tearing up out of frustration in the grocery store,
when mindless folks take selfies in the aisles, blocking my path, or ram my
cart as they run into it while texting in their haze/daze. Sometimes all I am trying to do is get food
to go home and cook to create my refuge of refueling, refortifying, and
regrouping to continue to be of service, yet some days are harder than others.
It is here, I just shake my head and sigh, “Really, people?”
After calling the utilities company with the only working
phone I had left that had one bar of connection, I ran through the gamut of ‘press
1,’ ‘press 2.’ Here in this what seemed
endless abyss of robot voicemail prompt circus of trying to get help for this
unexpected hell of rebuilding my return to normalcy… the stoic person on the
other end who finally answered after several minutes could not connect to my human.
Yes, she heard my story, or so she said. The first thing she said was, “Go online and
fill out this form.” I asked her if she
had listened to my story… and if she heard the part where everything blew up
and I had to start over. Short of running to one of the few libraries left
(since many are closing), I am not quite sure how she expected me to do this,
rather than help me from her end where everything was working properly.
She was disconnected more than I was, because she did not ‘hear’
or ‘see’ what was needed. It felt
dehumanizing and this was not a large example.
This was a minuscule taste of dehumanization in comparison
to relatives or friends dying and the airlines giving you the hardest time,
when all you are trying to do is go to a funeral on the other side of the
country.
This was a minuscule taste of dehumanization in comparison
to your friends knowing you have health-related dietary restrictions, yet you
are invisible and they book an event at a place where everything served is
something you cannot eat.
This was minuscule in comparison to colleagues calling a
meeting under the guise of wanting to get to know you over coffee, but they
never ask you a single question, rather they pitch you everything ‘all about
them’ and when it is your turn to have the floor, they ‘suddenly have to go.’
This was minuscule in comparison of paying to go to a
leadership summit whereby the agenda claims to be about working together to
find solutions, but rather it is one where everyone preaches, yet no one wants
to do the ‘real work’ – leaving it to the ones still struggling to find the answers,
because they have already ‘made it.’ It
is dehumanizing to be invisible, and forgotten, whereby everyone is in this for
themselves.
Yet all of these minuscule ‘moments’ of dehumanization add
up, as I have experienced them all and yes, sometimes things like this have
happened to me in one day, on a day when friends are too busy to talk to you or
everyone is gone on some luxurious holiday.
I bring this up as an
‘everyday dehumanizing experience’ in order to make a point in order to provide
both awareness and hope, challenge and change and as a wake up call to those,
who unknowingly do what they do without paying mind to their daily actions.
If humans choose to
lack compassion, understanding, resourceful mindfulness, or an out-of-body
human moment, we are not left with much in terms of humanity.
Therefore, I
encourage all of you to connect to the story I am about to share – we have
moments of re-calibration for connection.
You can make a
difference and it does not take much...
Even while limping along during times when some days are
tougher than others, we all have the capacity and ability to continue to be the
example. I am human and sometimes while I
am in no shape some days to feel like much, particularly being in a service
industry for a living giving until the tank is empty and hanging on until the
window where I can refuel, I will inevitably find/see/catch someone in a lesser
place and try to connect.
Such a moment happened as I got in my car to go replace my
cable box. I had to turn onto a street from
one direction; while another car had to cross it in the other. However, neither of us was able to cross it,
because a tiny Chihuahua on a leash decided to do its business smack dab in the
middle of the street, pulling its owner into this awkward place.
The owner was embarrassed.
A few people behind us honked out of frustration (as if that would make
the Chihuahua hurry or scare the s**t out of it faster).
Though my car and the other car across from me sat there
waiting calmly. The dog shivered
struggling trying to finish its business and I looked right at the owner
smiling, as she patiently waited with us. I could feel her humiliation; I could connect
with her reeling mind of hoping no one would get irate and get out of their car. I could sense and feel her anxiety of also
hoping her dog would hurry up so they both could get safely out of the street
so they would not be run over by some crazy person.
When the dog finished, she used her plastic bag to go pick
up the excrement. I rolled my window
down to smile at her to wish her a good day, smiling as I put my hand over my
heart.
She smiled as if she had had a compilation of minuscule dehumanizing
moments piled up bigger than her dog’s punctuation on what life felt like at
that moment in that street now sitting, steaming in that plastic bag. She looked back at me smiling and mouthed ‘thank
you.’
WE HAVE THE POWER TO REPAIR LINKS OF DEHUMANIZATION ONE ACT AT A TIME!
WE HAVE THE POWER TO REPAIR LINKS OF DEHUMANIZATION ONE ACT AT A TIME!
SIGH. Therefore, if
you have had a dehumanizing day or week, I encourage you to allow yourself to
take a deep breath, step back, have a brief out-of-body moment to connect to
someone else also having the same and see how YOU can make a difference. See how you can offer a moment of patience, a
kind thought or word or gesture, be selfless for a second or several, and know
that your everyday actions can make a difference. Even the smallest positive action is not minuscule even of the minuscule negative dehumanizing moments preceding this in
your own life as you give it seem monumental in comparison.
It is here we have the power to shift, and change, even by
one action, which can make its own statement and perhaps provide hope, life,
faith, reassurance, and affirmation to another human/soul.
Blessings to you!
Namaste.
