anxiety | Russellings of the Spirit

Posts Tagged ‘anxiety

Jun

Adaptor Anxiety and the Common Good

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: adaptor, anxiety, Apple, common good, obsolence, product

FAIR WARNING: This is going to sound like a rant. A rant from some ill-tempered old man… the blog post equivalent of me standing on my front porch, waving my arms, and yelling, “You kids! Get off my lawn!!”

But I promise… that’s not what is going on here.

[Well, maybe except for the “ill-tempered old man” part.]

Do you see this picture? The one showing the two wires coming out of my MacBook laptop. One wire goes to the power cord while the other one connects to the charger cable for my FitBit.

This picture clearly illustrates the HUGE gripe I and many others like me have with the Apple Corporation.

You see, Apple has this infuriating practice of regularly making their own cables and connectors OBSOLETE when they introduce a new product!

Do you see my FitBit charger cable? The black one? It is meant to plug into a USB port on the side of my laptop. But does this laptop (purchased just last year) actually HAVE a USB port?

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Of COURSE not!

It has something brand new from Apple called a Lightning port. I am sure the super savvy tech people at Apple can give you one hundred great reasons why the Lightning port is a VAST improvement over the USB. But what it means (in effect) is that you must either buy a Lightning-to-USB adaptor (like I did), or just throw out all your old USB connecting stuff and buy NEW!

They call it “product evolution.” I call it “creating an artificial market through manipulated obsolescence so that your already bloated P&L statement can be pumped up even MORE.”

[See? Doesn’t this sound REMARKABLY like an ill-tempered old guy yelling at the neighborhood kids? But please… hang in with me for another minute or two, would you?]

Well, imagine my JOY when I heard a news report the other day telling me that by the year 2024, the EU will require ALL (yes… that means you too, Apple) electronics manufacturers to use ONE… and ONE only… kind of electronic connector for ANYTHING they make.

Period. No exceptions.

But of course, since I live in the US, not the EU, this ruling will do NOTHING to ease my Adaptor Anxiety.

It seems to me that the lawmakers in the EU did something quite extraordinary in passing this new law. They paused and asked themselves, “Is there something we can do to promote the common good? Could we make a law that would benefit a LARGE number of people, all at the same time?”

They paused… looked around… slapped their foreheads in unison, and said, “I’VE GOT IT! Electronic connectors!”

The point here is not the connector. It is the idea of making decisions while looking out for the COMMON GOOD.

Not just the good of MY district.
Not just the good of MY pocket.
Not just the good of the high-priced lobbyists who took me to that five-star restaurant last night.
Not just the good of MY party.

If you are a citizen of the U.S., I will challenge you to pause for just a moment and ask yourself this question: “What are the chances of ANYTHING like this EVER passing in this country?”

Here, it is all about ME. ME and my individual freedoms to come and go as I wish… to own whatever kind of deadly firearm I wish… to force people to buy whatever kind of connector I wish… to spew whatever form of hate speech I feel like spewing… and to hell with the consequences for everybody else.

I might be wrong, but I don’t believe this was God’s vision of the world when God created it all in the first place. I believe the entire point of the Ten Commandments was to instruct God’s fledgling people how to live effectively together IN COMMUNITY. To be just as concerned with the well-being of our friends and neighbors as we are about our OWN well-being.

You know what else? I believe the Original Sin in the book of Genesis was a shining example of the human saying, “I’m going to do what I want to do… no matter who else it hurts in the process.”

You might say to me, “Well, if you think things are so danged perfect there in the EU, why don’t you just shut up and GO LIVE OVER THERE!!”

Sorry, friend. You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.

I think we can do better right here… just by making a few, simple, CONNECTIONS.

Abundant blessings;

May

Caution? or Fear?

By revruss1220 10 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: angst, anxiety, blessings, caution, COVID-19, distance, facemasks, fear, gloves, God, gratitude, harm, Jesus Christ, necessary, pandemic, peace, sanitizer, Thanksgiving, worry

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7, NLT)

Tilt A Whirl Last night I was in our kitchen making a salad. No biggie.

After chopping the tomatoes, I realized I still needed a few leaves of baby spinach for an iron boost. I turned around to the refrigerator, opened the door, and bent down to the open the vegetable-crisper drawer.

All of a sudden, the room started spinning and I became very woozy and disoriented.

“Damn!” I thought. “Another vertigo attack.”

I have had these before, so I knew what to do. Joan helped me to the couch where I laid down and immediately began engaging in the Epley Maneuver. (Here is a helpful little diagram of the Epley Maneuver for those who are unfamiliar with it).

It had been more than a year since my last encounter with the vertigo monster. I have undergone countless neurological tests to determine what causes them. However, the best anyone can come up with is a diagnosis of “Benign Positional Vertigo,” meaning that sometimes, when I assume certain positions, little stones of calcium in my inner ear get dislodged and bring on the impromptu Tilt-A-Whirl.

I stop and do a little Epley-ing and the ride stops. The nausea induced by the spinning lasts much longer, but the spinning itself is usually tamed pretty quickly.

I was distressed because I really thought I was done with these. That is until BOOM! There it came… out of the clear blue sky.

As I lay there with the cold compress on my head, (thank you, sweetheart), I began ticking through the “what ifs”.

“What if I get a bunch of these back-to-back?”
“What if this happens while I’m driving… or walking the dogs… or mowing the lawn?”
“What if this is something more serious than misplaced little calcium stones?”

And then – without missing a beat – I began to strategize a whole new life pattern that would help steer me clear of any vertigo-induced mishaps. I probably shouldn’t drive a car anymore. I should probably wear a football helmet while out walking. Maybe it would be wise to pad all the corners in our house with Styrofoam bumpers!

That’s when I knew I had crossed over… from CAUTIOUS LIVING to FEARFUL LIVING.

It made me wonder if I really knew the difference between the two.

We are certainly in a time now when smart (and compassionate) people engage in cautious living. We stay inside unless absolutely necessary. We keep a safe distance from others if and when we go out. We wear face masks and gloves. We wash our hands with ridiculous frequency.

It is good to be cautious when a highly deadly, highly contagious virus is loose in the land.

But when do we cross over from wise caution to unwise (and we might even call it unfaithful) FEAR?

In these global pandemic time, the line between those two is very fine indeed.

The answer lies there in the word “spirit.” Caution might lead us to do exactly the same things that fear would. Fearful and cautious people both wear facemasks, don’t they? The difference is the SPIRIT with which they put them on.

And maybe – just maybe – we can keep ourselves on this side of the CAUTION/FEAR line by exercising some GRATITUDE. Because you see, when we pause and give thanks for the infinite blessings we still DO have, we are too busy to count up the things we MIGHT NOT HAVE should disaster strike.

I tried it last night after my vertigo attack and it was amazingly effective! I said, “Thank you God, for this Epley person… whoever he or she was.” “Thank you that I have this loving wife by my side to soothe me and bring me a cold washcloth.” “Thank you that I was here in my home when this happened and not out on the highway.” “Thank you that this is really nothing more than misplaced bits of calcium.”

Be cautious, yes. But do not fear.

… but don’t even get me started on that New York Times article about the arrival in this country of those Giant Asian Murder Hornets!!!

May

It’s Closing In!

By revruss1220 9 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: activity, anxiety, deadline, future, God, golf, happiness, identity, Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:26, occupation, retirement, success, work, worry, worth

Retirement couple I’m not going to lie… I am more than a little bit scared.

There is a date looming on my calendar that ties my stomach into the kind of knots only a Boy Scout could master.

What is the nature of this anxiety-producing date, you ask?

Is it a root canal? A colonoscopy? An IRS audit? A Kenny G concert?

Nope. None of the above.

June 30, 2019, is the date of my official, 100% retirement.

And it scares me pantsless. (Not literally, of course.)

To clarify… I OFFICIALLY retired from ministry in the United Methodist Church three years ago. But because I still had energy – along with a deep-seated fear of facing an empty calendar every day – I accepted a half-time appointment.

Since July 1, 2016, I have been the pastor of the Mound City and Blue Mound, Kansas United Methodist Churches. They are located just about an hour south of my home.

The people at Mound City and Blue Mound have been more than gracious in allowing Joan and I to serve as their clergy couple. They have been generous and forgiving in helping this confirmed city boy connect with his first rural pastorate.

But now the time has come to move on to that next chapter, and I am surprised to find myself more anxious about making THIS transition than the last one.

Questions abound.

Questions such as: what am I supposed to DO all day? How often should I shave? How much Candy Crush is too much? What happens if Joan gets sick and tired of seeing me all the time? Am I going to turn into one of those people who take every little sniffle to the doctor’s office just to have something to do? Is reading a book in a big, comfy chair (and then falling asleep) really as much fun as it looks? When do black socks with sandals become acceptable? Will going out to a restaurant at 4:30 p.m. suddenly seem like normal behavior? How many blog posts a week are too many?

And the question of all questions: IS LEARNING TO PLAY GOLF A RETIREMENT REQUIREMENT?

Good Lord, I hope not.

OK… maybe I’m making some of those things up. But I am not making up the part about having no small bit of nervousness about entering full retirement.

You see, like many (most) other males, I have tied my identity a bit too close to my work. Here is what I mean by that: if someone were to ask me who I am, I would likely respond by telling that person what I do.

The truth is; who I am is NOT what I do.

And yet, for those who fail to make that distinction, the disappearance of our WORK can often mean (in our minds) the disappearance of our WORTH.

I have preached and counseled about this very topic on numerous occasions. I have looked people in the eye and told them, “You are a person of INFINITE WORTH, no matter what else is going on in your life.”

I have opened my Bible and read Matthew 6:26 to them… reminding them, “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

If anyone should be hip to this whole idea, shouldn’t it be ME?

Well, not to worry. It is only May 7. I’ve still got six weeks to figure this out. I’m sure something will percolate through my brain by then and I will finally be EXCITED and EAGER to retire.

In the meantime though, can anybody tell me what the Earlybird Special is at Denny’s today?

Aug

A Supernatural Stillness

By revruss1220 5 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: anxiety, earphones, God, gratitude, holy, Jesus Christ, joy, meditation, music, phone, Psalm 46:10, silence, stillness

Phonelessness Oh, the horror of it!

Honestly, I’m not sure how I made it through. It was without a doubt the longest 35 minutes of my life.

Thankfully though, I am still here to tell the tale. Shaken, but not overcome. Tested, but still standing.

What was this baptism by fire I was forced to endure, you might ask… this supreme challenge… this Waterloo of the soul?

If you’re ready, I’ll tell you. Brace yourself: Yesterday, at about 4:30 p.m., I left the house to take Rosie on her afternoon walk… AND DID NOT TAKE MY PHONE with me!

There I was, with absolutely NO ability to pull up the weather radar and check on the progress of the approaching thunderstorm.

… Completely cut off from access to the Royals’ starting line-up for that night’s game.
… with NO WAY to look at vital emails that might have arrived in the last 10 minutes that – no doubt – might have had the power to change my life…
… NO HEADPHONES piping music into my skull as I walked.
… ISOLATED from the power to send or receive texts from friends or family. Or complete strangers, for that matter.
- I mean, honestly… what if during that time my wife had paused her shopping cart and texted, “Hey, just finishing up here at Target. Do you need anything?” What then smart guy??

It was an eerie reminder of what life in the dark ages of the mid-90s was like.

How did I handle this frightening situation, you no doubt are wondering. What kind of coping skills did I draw on?

At the risk of making this episode sound a whole lot less heroic than I want you to believe, I am forced to admit that it was actually kind of nice.

I found myself taking a much closer look at the rich variety of weeds, plants, and trees growing by the side of our path.
I made actual eye contact and offered a greeting to other people out enjoying their own afternoon strolls.
I was able to listen to the mid-August song of the cicadas trilling their monotone notes.
And – wonder of wonders – I was prompted by the silence to pause in prayer and thank God for the rich palette of life spread out there before me.

I am not really sure I would call yesterday’s phoneless moment an epiphany by any stretch. But it was definitely a moment I wanted to repeat again… SOON.

It was one of those (sadly) rare, unfiltered, uncurated times when I found myself freed from my customary layers and layers of digital buffering.

It was a moment when I inhaled pure life and exhaled gratitude.

It was also a moment that brought me into close contact with a necessary humility, reminding me of my status as CREATURE, not CREATOR.

In spite of all of that, it is highly likely that when I wake up tomorrow I will still be the guy who loves to listen to music, look at weather radar, sports results, emails, and texts from friends on my phone.

But hopefully I will also be a little more of the Psalm 46:10* guy I was there for a brief moment.

Abundant blessings;

* “Be still, and know that I am God…”

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Posts Tagged ‘anxiety

Adaptor Anxiety and the Common Good

Caution? or Fear?

It’s Closing In!

A Supernatural Stillness

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Posts Tagged ‘anxiety

Adaptor Anxiety and the Common Good

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Caution? or Fear?

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It’s Closing In!

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A Supernatural Stillness

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