Marching Band Pays Tribute to Teacher Who Saved Their Lives

 Email This Post

Students in the American Fork High School Marching Band swept the awards not long ago in a competition at Brigham Young University.  What made this story interesting and somewhat controversial is this:  on the way back from another competition held in Idaho, the driver of the bus in which the students were riding fell asleep at the wheel.  All of the students survived.  The one fatality was the 33 year old instructor who grabbed for the steering wheel when she noticed the driver was out cold.

The controversial part occurred because some people believe that it is unseemly for life to go on, for joy to be in people’s hearts, or for friends and relatives to be happy and involved in their lives when someone dies.  Some people believe that it is disrespectful, cavalier and insensitive for others to carry on as though a tragedy didn’t happen.  Generally, this belief comes out of a confusion of pain, emotions and guilt over survival.

I think it’s a good thing that these students competed, and they did so in remembrance of Heather Christensen, the teacher who saved their lives.  And that’s the point:  she saved their lives so they could live, love, and play music.  I believe they showed her immense respect by playing in her honor, continuing with the competition for which she coached them.   Her immortality comes from being remembered fondly by her students who used the skills they learned from her to create the music she loved so much.

When someone we love dies, we don’t honor them by denying ourselves the normal pleasures of life.  I find that to be an insult.  Life is precious, and when somebody is gone from life, that which they lost should be treated with the utmost reverence by squeezing every moment of dignity, creativity, joy, adventure, work, love, compassion and fun that is possible.  This is the way you honor the deceased:  you carry on and do something of value with your life.

The students received a long, standing ovation as they marched off the field and embraced in tearful hugs.  What a fitting memorial to a brave, caring teacher.

Timeless Lessons from A Classic Story

 Email This Post

I have watched film adaptations of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in all its incarnations many, many times, and I recently watched the 2005 film version again. I love the film…no matter what criticisms may be about a portrayal or a performance. I clearly have a profound attraction to this work.

First and foremost, I love the utter regard the men had for women, which is evident from how they addressed them: “Miss…” (and their first names if they were single) or “Mrs….” (and their last names if they were married). Men bowed upon entering and leaving a woman’s presence, and women curtsied, even under unpleasant conditions. Flirting was ever-so-subtle: a look, a light “accidental” touch of a hand. A man romantically yearned for and tried to earn the affections of a woman. The sweetness of the regard for women in this era (particularly in upper and middle classes) was something to be admired, and something we now miss. There was a clear distinction between a “good” woman and an easy, loose woman or whore.

That distinction is gone today. Now, women put down good money for music that represents them as whores without pay. So many young men are casual about women and sex in general, and sex is a casual expectation almost always fulfilled.

Young women scoff at dignity and modesty as just stupid, prudish, sexist notions. They “shack up” with some dude without a marital commitment, yet expect the love and respect, fidelity and loyalty to exist without the spoken vows, only to be disappointed, hurt, and generally confused.

There was a recent film comedy, called “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” in which Matthew McConaughey (in a twist on Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”) got to go back into his life to see all his old girlfriends. There was one scene in the television ad for the movie which showed a seemingly endless dining table filled with hundreds of girls. Obviously, this was meant to show how shallow and manipulative he had been. To me, it just showed how many stupid girls there were (and are), “putting out” in a situation where there was clearly no respect, regard, or intent.

Men used to have to ask a woman’s dad for permission to “court” her, even when the woman was an adult! Now, all he has to do is show her a bedroom, back seat of a car, or a motel room, and the date is sealed. When men had to explain and express their intentions, they had to take the whole activity of dating much more seriously, as there were personal and social consequences to misleading a young lady. That reputation would annihilate any chances he might have had of marrying a good woman. He’d have to move states or provinces away. Now? That kind of rakish reputation makes girls/women want to line up to get some from an infamous entity.

The women’s revolution did not raise any consciousness worth elevating. It mostly diminished a woman’s sense of herself as special, minimized her value in the minds of men, put sex on the level of animals, created a nanny/baby-sitter/institutionalized day care financial boom (as women gave up the blessing of nurturing their own children), increased the use of abortion as a birth-control technique when an accidental pregnancy occurred with a guy who did not want fatherhood, created perpetually unhappy, angry, nasty wives, and made it very difficult for “nice girls” to be respected and cherished.

The last scene in Pride and Prejudice between the two now-married lovers has them discussing what she wants to be called by him when he is not using her given name. He suggests one name, and she rejects it sweetly, because it is what her father calls her. She then asks him what he will call her when he is angry. He, not being able to envision that situation, talks to her about always letting her know how lovingly important his happiness in wrapped up in her…forever…and he kisses her gently about her face as he says “Mrs. Darcy” over and over again. He gave her his heart, his life, his vows, and his name. And, in that era, giving a woman your name was the ultimate public and private statement of his total commitment to her, which makes that scene so moving to most of us, and infuriating to feminists who see that scene only as ripping away the woman’s identity.

I always cry at the end of the movie.

I cry also for what women have given up in exchange for wanting to have it all and not be subordinate to a man. I don’t know…I kinda think being on a pedestal is not subordinate. But what do I know? I’m only a recovered feminist.

Live Out Loud

 Email This Post

Mice kept on a diet that is healthy (but absolutely no fun at all) in which their caloric intake was restricted to only 70% of what’s considered “normal” lived 30 to 40% longer than the usual lifespan.  The only downside of this restriction was that the mice were less fertile than their non-restricted counterparts. 

Most people can’t restrict calories for long, so, according to the New York Times, scientists are trying to find a drug that tricks the body into thinking it’s eating fewer calories.  The problem is that all of these restricted calorie experiments are done on captive mice, who are selected for quick breeding and who are fed on rich diets.  A low-calorie diet could be much closer to the diet that mice are adapted to in the wild, extending their life simply because it is much healthier for them.  Mice don’t live that long, anyway.  Humans have a longer life span, and that extended duration of time on the planet leaves us more vulnerable to cancers.

So, after 20 years of experimenting with caloric restriction on monkeys in captivity, studies found the monkeys were healthier (i.e., they had fewer incidents of diabetes, cancer, and heart disease), but their life span was not significantly longer.  Eating more prudently than we generally do, therefore, was good for quality of life, but not for quantity of life.

And that’s the point of my taking on this issue in the first place.  People call my radio program knowing they’re probably going to die of some particular terminal disease they have.  They call me, because they’re spending each day suffering emotionally over the realization that they will soon be dead.  My response to one woman in this situation was to wake up each morning and yell out loud:  “Damn - I’m not dead!  Today, I’m gonna LIVE OUT LOUD!!!”  The point of our being upset about death is the realization that we’ve lost all we value in life.  So, take each day that you’re not dead to live life to the fullest.  Enjoy that day you’re not dead.  Don’t waste one precious moment of it.

Come to think of it, that’s good advice for everyone, since at different times, and at different rates, we’re all terminal.  Don’t waste one minute of life.

Live Like You Were Dyin’

 Email This Post

This is a short (and not so sweet) blog.  Recently, I found out that a couple I know have been dealt a terrible blow.  Beginning last January, the husband noticed his wife stopped doing her complicated crossword puzzles.  Now he’s dealing with the fact that the love of his life has Stage IV Alzheimer’s disease.  While it is unusual for all of this to evolve so quickly, the horrible reality is that they have to deal with this news at a time in their lives when their only concern should be thinking of having fun with their grandchildren.

Also not long ago, I read a letter on my radio program from a woman who commented about a caller who complained that her husband wasn’t willing or able to properly install their child’s car seat.  The letter writer told a story about her own family - her husband, also, struggled to properly secure their child’s car seat.  Then, not long after doing so, a huge truck “T-boned” their car and killed her husband, injuring his wife (who was the one who wrote to me), but leaving uninjured their 2½ year old child who was saved because of the properly secured car seat.

The lesson here?  You NEVER know what the day is going to bring.  For those of you who work so hard to preserve the hate and hurt from your past (so much so that the present is ruined, and the future automatically looks bleak), hear me out now:

 Today really is the first day of the rest of your life.
 Today, YOU are the architect of your life
 Today is the day available to enjoy the blessings you do have.

There may not be a tomorrow.  Don’t live as though you had all eternity to get fit, stop smoking, and give up abusing drugs, alcohol or food.  Be nice to others, work hard at something, give of yourself to someone else, and let go of excuses and “blaming” behavior.  You don’t have all eternity.  You only know for sure that you have right now.

Don’t waste it.

When Someone Believes in You

 Email This Post

There’s an interesting program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro that aims to keep 12 to 18 year old girls in school, minus the sad drama of pregnancies or abortions.

The program is sponsored by College Bound Sisters.  Girls in the program attend 90-minute meetings every week, at which they receive lessons in abstinence and the use of contraceptives, and they receive one dollar per day that they are not pregnant.  The money is deposited into a fund that’s available for collection when they enroll in college.

Obviously, there are many who will say “Hey, bribery is not the correct way to handle such behavioral issues.”  But slow down and think about it – when a 12 year old believes that one dollar a day is a great incentive, it tells you two things:

1. the gentle maturity level of such young girls
2. how so very many young girls are hungry for direction

Keep in mind that 3 out of 10 young women become pregnant by age 20, and the costs associated with teen pregnancies exceed $9 BILLION annually.

So, what’s their track record?  According to the co-director of the program, 6 of the 125 who have been enrolled for 6 months or longer have gotten pregnant or otherwise dropped out since it began in 1997 (and it only costs $75,000 – not billion – to operate the program).  Recent graduates have left the program with up to $3,000 saved up for college.  Basically, the representatives of the program say “If someone believes in you, there’s no end to what a lot of people can accomplish.”

This reminds me of a patient I had years ago, who went from “ditzy” behavior and drug addiction to clean and sober.  She completed college and advanced nursing training, and has been employed ever since.  A little ego in me caused me to ask here, “What made the difference here?”  I thought she’d point out some brilliant intervention of mine.  Nope, not at all.  She pointed out that I had believed in her when no one else did, that she had respected me, and I respected her potential.  That made the difference in her outlook and choices.

So, when you’re confused as to how to really help someone, just believe in them, and let them know it.

Bribery?! Haven’t We Been There, Done That?

 Email This Post

The Health section of The New York Times on March 2 debated the usefulness of bribing school children with money, toys, candy and electronic gizmos to have them attain better grades.

When I was in school, it was cute stickers and the pride of getting a good grade that you could brag about that made your parents all sorts of happy.  The good grade was the proximate award for all the hard work.  Getting the reputation as being smart was a good thing, and becoming valedictorian was great, as was qualifying for scholarships of all sizes for college.  Spending a lifetime knowing you worked hard and earned what you had the hard way was the long-term reward.

Now, some geniuses want to rob children of all of that.  These greater minds than ours want children to fight for things of substance (money) rather than for things of glory (purpose).  Not all endeavors have a high rate of financial return:  a hospice worker helps the dying and their families face their fears of death; a fireman runs into burning buildings to save complete strangers from a horrible death; kindergarten teachers introduce our children to the world of budding independence, self-confidence, social maneuvering and the alphabet…and that’s only a few examples.

Frankly, we need more kind and compassionate people than we do more “A” students in this world, as it turns out that the greatest thieves (many CEOs, crooked politicians and Ponzi scheme giants), terrorist masterminds, and general sociopaths all have very high IQ levels and got great grades.

How about us giving financial rewards, candy and electronic gizmos to kids who go out of their way not to bully, tease, steal, lie, sexually harass, or sexually act-out?  Or to those who won’t drink or take drugs or steal or backtalk their elders? 

Would that work, I wonder?

Wishin’ and Hopin’, but Ignoring What Is

 Email This Post

A listener wrote and asked me to elaborate on a phrase I’ve occasionally used on my radio program:  “Hope is often postponed disappointment.”  

The danger in putting too much effort into just wanting something to happen, is that you can ignore the reality of what is.

Or watch other videos at youtube.com/DrLaura

Novelist David Foster Wallace’s Ironic Commencement Speech

 Email This Post

Friday, September 19, 2008, I was reading the last page of the “Weekend Journal” in The Wall Street Journal.  It was adapted from a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College.  Mr. Wallace, 46, died recently, an apparent suicide.

I thought it odd that an entire page of The Wall Street Journal was dedicated to the musings of a man who opted out of life after giving advice to young people just beginning their adult foray into the trials and tribulations of existence.

The main focus of his presentation to the students seemed to be on the issue of self-centeredness:  “It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth.  Think about it:  there is no experience you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of.  The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever.  Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real - you get the idea.  But please don’t worry that I’m getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called ‘virtues.’  This is not a matter of virtue - it is a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.”

First, he is “right on” with the hard-wiring of self-centeredness.  I remember my mother telling me once that when, as a teenager, she experienced the death of her mother from breast cancer, and was consumed with grief, that she looked out her window to see people outside driving, walking, talking, and going about their business as though nothing had happened.  She related feeling shocked that, somehow, the whole world did not stand still as did her own heart.

It is obvious that, of course, we are the most absorbed by our immediate environment and experiences….which pretty much means ourselves.  However, Mr. Wallace’s consistent dismissal of virtues is perhaps what was missing from his life. Seeing, acknowledging, and caring about others does not necessarily come naturally.  It is a virtue taught by parents and community as well as by religious teachings.  One of the most central aspects of religious training is to “love thy neighbor.”  Why?  Just because it’s “nice?”  No, although it is nice.  It is because caring for those outside yourself gives you a connectedness that minimized loneliness and a purpose which minimizes despair.

Towards the end of his speech, he points out:  “The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little un-sexy ways, every day.  That is real freedom.”

He then asks the audience to “please don’t dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon.  None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.  It is about making it to 30 or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head.”

So, in attempting to enlighten the young people about a bigger value in life - commitment and obligation to others - he came back to his essential hard-wiring:  it is all about living in a way which makes you not want to kill yourself.  Ironically, his thought process came all the way back to being self-centered.

In eschewing morality, religion, dogma, considerations of eternity - all of which he assembled under “finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon[s],” he disconnected himself from the kind of motivation, identification, support and spiritual reward which may have kept him from committing suicide.  Sad, really.