Getting Physical

We’re going to give you some food for thought this week. Well, ok, we try to give you food for thought every week, but here’s something small and easy to digest – a mental appetizer, if you will. Because in our two most recent podcasts, “Getting a Handle on Your Health,” we’ve been talking a lot about some scientific research and direct personal experiences related to health issues. Our information all adds up to the idea that we each have the ability to be much healthier, without doctors, pills or therapy. (I hope you’ll listen to those programs, available here by clicking on The Humanity Podcast.)

But all right, I promised you an appetizer-sized morsel for your head in this week’s blog. Here it is: Have you ever considered how easy it is to escape responsibilities in life if we are physically sick? And has it ever occurred to you that this is often a reason people allow themselves to get sick? Chances are, you do this too at times – without even recognizing it.

Think about this a moment. It may sound strange at first. But if you’re feeling pressed for time, stressed out, overburdened, tired, whatever … no one cares, do they? “Boss, listen, my kid broke his arm last night and I have to take him to the doctor again today and then I have to pick up the dry cleaning and run my mother to the dentist and …” And what will the boss say? Probably something very understanding like, “We need you here today.” It may not only be the boss whose expectations are hard to deal with. Maybe you had planned on cooking an elaborate dinner for some close friends but now feel too frazzled to enjoy it. And maybe you’re also supposed to go to some park or somewhere this weekend for a family outing. In many of our lives, the to-do list can easily run on and on.

But if the boss doesn’t care that you’re stressed and tired, neither will your kids and maybe not your friends either. On the other hand, even the boss will show sympathy if you’re sick. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” the boss might say, “you head on home early today.” Our culture does not acknowledge psychological, emotional needs in people’s lives. But physical illness is generally accepted, and regarded as something that happens to people without any responsibility on their part. They are victims.

When we feel intense, prolonged emotional distress, some people turn this into physical illness. These folks actually “want” the illness, at some irrational level – they see it as a cure for their situation. I’m writing about this because I know from personal experience that it’s essential to constantly remind yourself why you don’t want to be sick. There are always more constructive ways to deal with any situation, if you give some clear thought to the problem (even if you find you have to very deliberately concoct some small fib for the boss … ). Just don’t let yourself lose control of the situation by sliding toward physical illness. That really doesn’t work anyway, does it? Maybe you got out of that elaborate dinner, but there were smarter ways to do that – and now that you’re sick, you may be stuck carrying on with daily duties despite feeling terrible for many days or weeks. Hey, even the boss’s sympathy extends only a short distance. And worse, you make yourself increasingly into someone who relies on physical illness to deal with emotional situations. That’s a slippery slope.

Stay well – and know how and why you can make yourself sick, and that you even actually may sometimes want to be sick. That knowledge gives you more control and makes you a healthier, more responsible member of society. That’s our goal here at The Humanity Project: building a better world, one person at a time. To do that, we each have to do our part. Every day. – RSK

Beyond Victimhood, part two

In last week’s blog, I was saying that The Humanity Project is basically a new social movement, an organization dedicated to the idea that the only real way to improve the world is to improve each person in it, one at a time. That’s our mission: to convince as many individuals as possible that we each must take more responsibility for leading healthy, happy, productive lives because that is our duty to the rest of humanity. Fortunately, if we fulfill that duty, then our personal daily existence also is transformed for the better. It’s a win-win.

But I think one of the troubles many of us run into as we try to take control is giving in to a feeling of victimhood. The world just won’t cooperate with us sometimes, will it? We know that we can excel in that management position at work, but can’t get our boss to consider us. Or we just know that we could be healthy if it wasn’t for all the stress caused by our lack of money. Or we’re a wonderful and kindhearted person, but can’t seem to make any real friends. Victim, victim, victim … Part of the problem here, I feel, is in defining our terms. If by “victim,” we simply mean that our problem is not of our own making, and certainly not of our intentional making, then yes, in that sense I suppose we can call ourselves victims. We must confront some big ongoing problem that is forced upon us or inadvertently caused by us. But everyone is in that same situation, one way or another. Our problems come at us and surround us at times, without our deliberately inviting them.

I believe that if we think of ourselves as “victims,” or just let ourselves somehow feel that we are victims, we abandon the undeniable human ability to take control of just about any problem that comes along. We have enormous, and I believe, largely untapped powers to improve our own lives. To me, that’s why we can’t ever let ourselves think or feel as if we are a victim of a hostile world. Because we can change things. If we try.

One of my favorite writers, Henry David Thoreau, expressed it this way: “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.” Of course, he was referring to both men and women, using the accepted language of the 19th Century. I know that Thoreau was right, from personal experience and learning from the experiences of others, both famous people and anonymous people. Conscious effort can change our lives. But it can’t be blind effort, applied without discipline and insight. We must learn something about who we are as individuals, and what we really want out of life, then find realistic strategies for making changes, either outside us or within us.

By doing that, we really are building a better world. One human being at a time. And by doing that, we are each getting a great deal more fulfillment and joy out of our life. The Humanity Project is trying to give individuals encouragement and inspiration, concrete information and vicarious experience (see the first two chapters of “A Human Drama” on this website) that can help them get a handle on their daily lives and be more responsible human beings. I hope you’ll want to come along and join us in this effort – we do need your help. Your enthusiasm, your time, your money to support our work. Tell your friends about us, please. Our mission can only succeed if enough people begin to make those key improvements in their own lives. A saner world starts with you, it starts with me. Right now. – RSK

Beyond Victimhood

If you haven’t checked out our latest podcast, “A Better You, A Better World,” I hope you will. Because you’ll hear me talking about The Humanity Project’s mission in a new way. As I say in that broadcast, I feel I haven’t done a very good job so far in explaining what this organization really is trying to do. We’re new and we’re taking a unique and innovative approach to trying to improve the world, attacking one problem from many angles. So I’ve struggled to find the right words to clearly explain what we’re doing – until now.

(By the way, if you do listen to the podcast, please be patient with your computer. If you have broadband, there may be a bit of a delay before you see anything happening after clicking to listen. If you have dial-up, of course, there may be a longer delay. That pause is caused by the way your specific system is set up, not our website technology. Some computers insist on downloading the whole podcast before starting to play it. So just allow the brief time needed to do that, please, even if it looks like nothing is happening at first.)

Anyway, as I was saying, The Humanity Project is about a better world. So are a lot of other groups, and God knows, we need them all! But we think our specific mission is special, in some respects. We’re really a fledgling social movement that says the only way we can genuinely change the world is to change the people in it, one at a time. We think this effort must start within each of us as individuals. Our organization believes every person has an ethical duty to take greater responsibility for their life, including their health, relationships, work, sexuality and more. This improves our personal everyday existence, but more importantly, we help build a healthier and saner world.

But our group also knows that it’s no good telling people to “take more control,” unless we tell them how this can be done. So The Humanity Project offers a variety of cutting-edge resources, at no cost, that provide concrete information about ways to make changes for a better life.

We believe one of the key problems in taking charge of our lives, and so becoming more responsible members of society, is the issue of victimhood. I was thinking about this just today as I struggled with my own feelings. I won’t bore you with the details, except that I was feeling emotionally weaker than usual, as if life was overburdening me. Nonsense! And that’s what prompted this blog. And the next one too. Because we’re not victims at all. We each possess a proven human capacity to seize control of any situation and change it – and that makes us strong creatures, not weak ones. Next week, I’m going to finish up my little chat about this topic of victimhood. I hope that you’ll want to come back to read it and that you’ll also listen to our podcasts. And please, tell your friends about The Humanity Project. We would appreciate that very much. Thanks! See you next week! – RSK

Guest What?

We know you’re out there. Yes, we’re a new organization. And yes, some of you are just finding us – and trying to decide what you think of us. I understand that. We’re a unique group in some ways, a bit intellectual and artsy and deeper than some, I suppose. It takes a while to digest our ideas and where we’re going with them.

But the figures show that folks are indeed finding www.thehumanityproject.com, with many hundreds of page views recorded in our first three weeks of operation.

And so, guess what? Or as I punningly wrote above, “Guest What?” We’d already like you to offer us guest blogs for this space. I want this part of our website to be used for more than my weekly chats about The Humanity Project and some of the psychological and social issues that consume our attention. I also hope that we can hear from our readers, our website guests, who have their own stories and perspectives to offer.

We’re putting out a call for guest blogs. The guidelines are few, but important, so if you plan to send us a possible blog, please consider these suggestions:

First, keep it short. No longer than about 500 words or so, please. Shorter than that is even better.

Second, it must deal with a personal experience that shows how you gained more control over your life somehow. Your blog might tell us how you learned to conquer your fears and do what you want to do in life, despite worries and doubts. Or it might tell us how you overcame your sexual guilt and freed your sensual nature. Or perhaps how you learned that your mind deeply affects your physical health and ways in which you use that knowledge to stay healthy. Whatever it is … But the idea is that it’s a true personal tale about some specific way in which you used self-knowledge to get a handle on your life.

Third (and this is probably unnecessary to mention to most of you, I’m sure), please keep your blog thoughtful and free of profanity and inappropriate comments. We view The Humanity Project as a website that even older kids (ok, bright older kids) could enjoy. For that and other reasons, we try to avoid content that includes real street language or other objectionable material.

That’s it. No other rules, except we hope you’ll give us your best writing. This website prides itself on quality writing. You don’t have to be Shakespeare or Joyce, but some clear understandable prose would be wonderful. Just say it simply, with honest feeling, and we’ll be happy to pass it along to our growing number of blog readers. To submit a guest blog, just email me at rsk@thehumanityproject.com … or click on “Contact Us” on the homepage. We look forward to reading about your experiences – and sharing them with our other guests at The Humanity Project. -- RSK