Where are the Heroes?

You may have your own definition of a hero, and whether it’s derived from the comic book superheroes or the person who cares for an aging grandmother, a hero possesses common basic traits: compassion, self-sacrifice, humility, anonymity, and helping another without personal gain. A true hero is humble in approach and huge in heart.

Where are they?

People have lost their jobs and programs have failed them. Unemployment benefits are rejected or have run out. Insurance coverage, if available, is obscenely expensive. People who have years of experience with transferable skills aren’t even honored with a response to their resumes.

People who lose their jobs are abandoned by friends, family, government, organizations, and society.  They become societal lepers with homelessness as their colony.

The reality: we are ruled by greed and a what’s-in-it-for-me mindset. People who already have incomes take a second or third job, preventing the unemployed from securing employment. People with both a regular job and a part-time job aren’t willing to give up one so another may have some semblance of worth.

No matter what the economy, the wealthy gets wealthier. You may label it being astute. I, and many others, call it greed and selfishness.

What heroes are not: You are hardly a hero when you go to work in your new Lexus and your neighbor is hording pennies to buy groceries. You are hardly a hero when you put off retirement even though you qualify for pension and Social Security and your neighbor can’t find a job. You are hardly a hero when your company continues to reap profits while your customers are scraping by to meet their increasing utility, water, and tax bills.

You may argue that you have a business to run so you must treat everyone fairly. You may argue that you were born into wealth so you must keep up the image. You may argue that you are saving for that vacation in the Bahamas or a third diamond ring or your son’s post-graduate education. Those or any other conjured arguments have no validity when anyone has no income.

No one who is employed can possibly empathize with someone who has lost his job. Until you have been in that situation – to know, really know there will not be the automatic deposits in your checking account, that you will have no more contributions to a 401k, that you now have to pay $1000 a month for COBRA, that you have no money for dental insurance, dental care, or those new glasses you need – you have no clue.

Where are the heroes? I have seen no one step up, out of their comfort zone, to help others who have no comfort zone. All I’m hearing is gimme, gimme, gimme.

The opportunity: The adage of “charity begins at home” may be as close as your neighbor or friend or family member. Yet you are too blind to see. No one is exempt from being able to do a heroic deed. And before you point fingers at others, ask yourself how you can be a hero. Look at the common basic traits and then be a hero to someone in need of one. Don’t wait for them to ask. Do something anonymously, without personal gain – other than a feeling that you did something others aren’t doing – for the betterment of humankind.

Cutting the Cord

Well, we did it. After many years of being tethered to a wall outlet, we’ve cut our landline. This was not an easy decision since my husband and I have always had a landline. In cutting costs, though, we reviewed the duplication of our phone service: two cell phones and a landline. It didn’t make sense to have both.

We didn’t make the decision in haste. First we conducted an informal poll with 30 friends. In an email, we told them what we were considering and asked if they had done the same. Everyone responded. The 20- and 30-somethings either said they haven’t had a landline for years, or, as one stated, he had never had a landline. The 40- and 50-somethings had either cut the cord recently and had no regrets or they were also considering it and to let them know what we found in our research.

For a month, we consciously used only our cell phone. Interestingly, we discovered we rarely make phone calls. Most of our communication is via email. That would explain less than 100 minutes usage on our cell phones.

The decision was made and we emailed everyone to tell them the news of our rebirth. But our phone company wasn’t going to make it easy for us to cancel our landline.

First of all, I went to their website and found nothing about canceling a service so I emailed Customer Support on a weekend. I received a response that I’d have to do that via phone during their business hours. I scheduled it on Monday in my calendar.

I phoned and spoke to the representative about disconnecting our landline. She asked me for our PIN. Since we have never used the PIN, I had no idea what that would be and I told her so. I had the recent bill in my hand and told her I could give her our account number and I could even answer our secret question but she said we would need the PIN or we wouldn’t be able to disconnect our landline. Since my husband’s name is on the bill, she asked if she could speak to him. I told her he was at work and he certainly wouldn’t know the PIN either since I’m the one who handles all the business communications. She again said she was sorry but wouldn’t be able to grant our wish unless we had the PIN. On a whim, I blurted out one of the dozen or so PINs we use, and I guessed right.

But that wasn’t the end of it. She told me since we had a combination router that is both for the internet and the phone, I’d need to make a transfer at an office. I use the internet for my business so the thought of having to disconnect it and then reconnect another box made me a little anxious but thankfully, they have Saturday hours. So, for a week longer, we had a landline we didn’t use but one we were paying for.

With how ridiculous this was and my conspiracy theory mindset, I’m sure the hiccups along the way were meant to dissuade us from disconnecting. In short, we couldn’t discontinue our service on-line, nor by email, nor my phone, and only when we exchanged the box which sure looks the same as the other box. However, we’re saving $50 a month and not only is that nothing to get upset about, it’s working out quite well and our home seems quieter and less cluttered.

The Comfort of an Old Clock

Several years ago, after I had purchased my own home, I scourred the countryside to find an antique clock just like my grandmother had in her kitchen. The gentle tick-tick-tick of the Regulator, coupled with the warmth of Grandma’s wooden cookstove and the aroma of Grandpa’s pipe, was the feeling I wanted to mimic in my own home. But finding the perfect clock was not meant to be until one day when my daughter and I were exploring Milwaukee’s Third Ward.

We came upon an obscure, out-of-the-way antique store amidst abandoned warehouses. Truth be told, we were a little lost. As we entered the store, we saw several old friends playing cards at a table while the owner was preparing snacks. They all greeted us warmly while we proceeded to meander through the store with no intent other than to meander through the store. By this time, I had given up on finding the perfect clock.

Lo and behold, I saw it. It wasn’t a Regulator but it grabbed me somewhere internally and said, “Take me home, please.” It had character, a wind-up key, no name, discolored pendulum, and a window whose crack you could see only from inside the door. It was love at first sight. The chime didn’t work; it was wound too tight, but its tick was exactly the sound I’d been searching for. It transported me to my grandmother’s kitchen and I felt comforted.

It wasn’t cheap and it cost almost as much to have it repaired but it quickly became a member of my household. The chime turned out to be more of a gong, reminding me of a dark, foggy London alley in the old Sherlock Holmes’ movies but that added to the charm.

The clock traveled with me into my marriage and subsequent new home. My husband, though, was disturbed in the night by the gong so I stopped winding that part. About a year ago, it stopped ticking. We had just placed our home on the market and didn’t want to have a blank wall for the four weeks it would take for repairs so we waited for the right time. It hung silent, its pendulum still. I resorted to a small digital clock on the end table but it certainly wasn’t the same as hearing the ticking and seeing the pendulum swing.

A few weeks ago, we decided to paint our living room. All the wall hangings came down, including the non-working pendulum clock which I brought it to the clock doctor. I told the clock doctor I didn’t want the gong rewound because it disturbed my husband. Five weeks passed and we truly missed seeing it on the wall, but after it came home, the comfort of my grandma’s kitchen returned, and, yes, Sherlock Holmes came back too, and my husband now appreciates it maybe more than I but he won’t admit it.

Something New This Way Comes

I’m still trying to figure out this newfangled stuff but I find it exciting and I feel blessed that I still have the patience and tolerance to try. I will be adding blogs periodically to take the place of my monthly e-newsletter. I will post my articles as they are finished and any updates that may be of interest to others. I will add a blog link to my website and the notification in my last e-newsletter which I plan to release today. I will check my Facebook and my LinkedIn sites to see if I can post a blog notice.

As with any changes, I feel some trepidation. When I changed realtors and insurance companies recently, I asked myself, “Am I making the right decision?” The answer usually doesn’t come until much later when, on some level, I evaluate the success of the change. With the aforementioned examples, even though we really like our new realtor, success will come in the form of the sale of our home and the purchase of a new one. With our insurance, success will be determined by how well we are covered in the event of a tragedy. The former, we look forward to; the latter, not so much.

OK, now I’m off and running. A new venture. Another post. And thank you for reading this far. I hope you continue to visit or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Carolyn
www.YourPublishingSource.com
www.SendOutCards.com/icareaboutyou

Maturity at Face Value

I recently had a birthday, one which brings me much closer to 60. In recent years I’ve become keenly aware of what my mother meant when she remarked she didn’t know that old lady in the mirror. But my guess is she never saw herself on video.

Early on that birthday morning, my husband gave me a huge gift bag and a mylar Happy Birthday balloon accompanied with four colorful latex balloons. He waited patiently as I went through the layers of pink tissue, each stratum with a unique and increasingly valuable gift. At the bottom was a Flip video camera. Now, I’m not the picture-taker in the family but he reasoned that I could use it for interviews with my clients if they’d like a video to go along with their book and I could certainly use it for my trip to Ethiopia with my daughter to bring home their adopted little girl.

Truth be told, I think he bought it for himself. One clue is that he snatched it from me and began recording all my movements and those of the cats.

I love balloons, and feeling very blessed, I wrote a message of gratitude on each of the latex balloons. I then opened our patio doors and walked to my lavender garden in my barefeet and pajamas, and I released each balloon to the sky. Yes, the video was rolling.

I returned to the sofa to sip my morning coffee when my husband thought it necessary to show me what this little video camera can do. There, in reality, was my image writing the messages on the balloons. My face puffy, wrinkled, and sagging. Who is that old woman in the camera? I was taken aback as to how old I looked. I don’t feel that way. That woman is a stranger to me.

Then the puzzle pieces began coming together. For months I’ve been looking for part-time work. I’ve taken several state exams and passed one with high results. I soon received a letter that I would be considered for a position in the area if I was interested. I was thrilled. It wasn’t part-time, but my husband and I would work out our schedules so I can still help people with their life stories and him with his art fairs.

I know I have gray hair, I know I have wrinkles and wear glasses, but I also know I have many years of valuable work experience and education. However, when the interviewer asked me what my maturity would bring to the position, my thoughts hiccupped a little. My maturity? Did she mean “my experience”? Maybe, but she said “maturity.”

I don’t remember exactly what I said but I’m sure I responded appropriately and calmly with factors that would distinguish me from those much younger . . . or is it “extinguish” since I got a rejection letter instead of a second interview.

I wasn’t upset or angry, just slightly bewildered. Didn’t she read my application and my resume? Didn’t she take my test results into account? Didn’t she contact my references?

The video explained the rejection. However, why didn’t she see the real me? The part of the video where, in my red pajamas, I opened the patio door and stepped barefoot into my lavender garden. There wasn’t a wrinkle on my face and my skin didn’t sag as I joyfully released the balloons to the sky.

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