On Impatience and Telomeres

The world is divided into two groups of people: those who wait on line patiently and those who don’t.

A very popular, the Levain bakery, at the end of my block attracts throngs. I alter my schedule to visit the shop in the early morning, to snare a prized oatmeal scone or fluffy blueberry muffin, like a hunter who knows the habits of the animal she’s tracking.

I’m mystified by those willing to ‘queue up’ as the British say, and baffled by the calm faces of the crowd last Sunday morning as they snaked around the corner of Broadway and 72^nd Street, waiting to shop at Trader Joe’s.

Suspecting some enticing gimmick, I asked the young man holding the TJ sign what motivated the crowd.

“There’re waiting to shop in Trader Joe’s,” he said, with a nonchalance as if the answer was as obvious as the light of day. To my mind, the ‘obvious’ was ‘outlandish.’

I admit I have never been a patient person, but I wonder if people consider how much of their lives they spend on lines.  The estimate is that each of us spends five years of our lives ‘waiting.’

A few years ago, a dear friend, tried to help by gifting me a book of Hebrew letters, colorfully illustrated, and advised me to meditate on them. But patience was required to treat my impatience and I failed to improve.

My impatience has rewarded me. I’ve sailed through some windows of opportunity just before they closed, saving a year in college, and purchasing a piece of real estate at an opportune time.

My mom wasn’t brimming with patience either. She lived as if pursued by a pack of wild wolves nipping at her heels. Actually it was time she tried to outrun.  We know none of us wins this race.

It is thought that the length of our telomeres shortens as we age. Of course, we age as we wait, which brings us closer to the finish line. If we find waiting stressful, hypothetically, our telomeres could shorten at a faster rate.

Perhaps you remember the famous marshmallow study (1972). The experiment observed children who devoured their marshmallows immediately and those who, with the promise of more, resisted the temptation. Children who ate their marshmallows immediately were found to be less successful in life compared to those who delayed gratification. (I bet that becoming aware of this pattern would help the children change it. In support of awareness, is the fact that the study has been questioned: is it self-control or strategic reasoning that underlies a child’s behavior?)

Conclusion: Each situation requires an analysis . To pose the question: Is the treat worth the wait? Is the end result envisioned, worth the time invested? Of course like many situations, the best approach becomes clear only in retrospect.

Dear Reader, I invite your thoughts. Jsimon145@msn.com

The Little Word "Yet"

Much time and energy in our lives is spent overcoming negative messages. These come from many sources-parents, teachers, peers, miscellaneous encounters in our environment.  When we think of good times with our parents and our favorite teachers and friends, we may remember they exemplified belief and trust in the best aspects of ourselves.

The little word “yet” is an important one to consider. Just because 'it' hasn't happened yet,  doesn't mean that that an unrecognized talent won't develop or that a negative will not transform into a positive event.

Two recent examples in the popular press demonstrate the theme of transformation. The award-winning movie Les Miserables, based on Victor Hugo's masterpiece, begins with a scene of Jean Valjean, a rough, dirty, cantankerous prisoner. We cannot envision yet that he is destined to become a man of heroic proportions.

This past week The New York Times featured the story of Katie Beers, who was locked in a dungeon for 16 days when she was nine years old. In her memoir, Ms. Beers writes that her life now as wife, mother, college graduate and insurance saleswoman, would not have been possible "had not the unthinkable happened in 1992." In an odd way, she says, the kidnapping saved her. She says that no matter what you endure through life, "there is something better if you want there to be."

Conclusion: Keeping in mind the little word  “yet” can help us recognize the great potential to transform what appears negative in the moment to a positive in the future.

Dear Reader, I invite you to comment and contribute examples of your own. jsimon145@gmail.com

To Wound or to Heal

How we interpret experience of the world is most often unconscious; in simplistic terms, our mind registers each interaction as either wounding or healing.  A person's viewpoint is determined by a complex interaction of physical, physiological, psychological,  interpersonal, environmental and circumstantial factors.

Instead of "To be or not to be," Shakespeare might rephrase the question today as "to wound or to heal."

Some fortunate people focus on the world as giving and healing. Tragically, others become caught up in the one-dimensional view of the wounding world.

Both Nancy Lanza and her son Adam who gunned down twenty children and six adults last December 14 in Newtown Connecticut , interpreted the world as a negative, dangerous place, requiring weapons to defend themselves. Sadly, they are not alone.

The trick in life is to find ways to transform wounding  experiences into healing ones. Sometimes the feat can seem as magical as spinning straw into gold, a task accomplished by the dwarf Rumpelstiltskin in the Brothers Grimm fairytale.

Dr. Temple Grandin, afflicted with autism, is an example of a person who transformed  a disability into an asset. Her bond and special gift to communicate with animals   led her to become one of the top scientists in the humane livestock handling industry.

Who succeeds and who fails to integrate the dual aspects of the world remains, to a large extent, as mysterious as the question of what creates our perspective in the first place.

Conclusion: The mystery remains but the goal is clear: to transform wounding experiences of any kind into healing ones for ourselves and for the world.

Dear Reader, I welcome your response, jsimon145@gmail.com

Evolution: 2013

Two recent horrifying events, the Newton massacre and the subway homicides, raise the topic of psychiatric treatment and the mental health system. Huge gaps become apparent.

Erika Menendez, who pushed an unsuspecting stranger into the path of an oncoming subway on December 27, had an extensive psychiatric history including episodes of violence, hospitalizations and arrests, yet the system provided little oversight of her activities or follow-up treatment.

Since the government began closing the residential psychiatric facilities in the1980's, there have been no facilities to provide long term psychiatric care for troubled individuals. As a result, many have ended up in jail.  Astoundingly, more Americans receive mental health treatment in prisons and jails than in hospitals or treatment centers. "We have criminalized being mentally ill," Sheriff Greg Hamilton from Texas said. And instead of saving taxpayer money, jailing the mentally ill proves to be more costly to the taxpayers than residential facilities.

The good news: we no longer burn witches at the stake. We have psychopharmacological treatments for individuals suffering from psychiatric disorders. We've closed the back wards of mental institutions where people lived long lives with no hope for treatment or release. The bad news: jails have become the residential facilities to house many of the seriously mentally ill.

In finding a solution, one shouldn't underestimate the importance of prevention. Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, the Nobel Prize winning scientist who died recently at 103. (The New York Times, December 31) offers some insight in her autobiography: "It is imperfection-not perfection-that is the end result of the program written into that formidably complex engine that is the human brain...and of the influences exerted upon us by the environment and whoever takes care of us during the long years of our physical, psychological and intellectual development."

Dr. Levi-Montalcini 's words support the fact that innumerable factors go into the development of each of us as complex, unique individuals. Beyond addressing the results of environmental and biological factors later in life, her statement opens up the subject and possibility of prevention.

And parenting can play a tremendous role in prevention. Yet no public school format exists to educate and instruct about child development and parenting. It is assumed that we know how to raise children. Yet the parent-child relationship is one of the most important, complicated and ever-changing ones. During more than thirty years of psychiatric practice, I have heard stories of many well-intentioned parents who commit grievous mistakes simply because they don't know better.

Conclusion:  Goals to address the prevention and treatment of mental illness and to teach principles of parenting will benefit us all and help to prevent violence. An understanding of the complexity of these problems would be best addressed from an integration of educational, psychiatric, economic and legal approaches (including gun laws; please see my blogs of Dec. 24 and 31).

Dear Reader: I welcome your opinions. jsimon145@gmail.com