Serious challenges need serious solutions

Our country and our world today are facing real, serious, and complex challenges. Systemic racism, growing inequality, mass migration driven by poverty and violence – these problems have no easy answers. But there are people who study these issues, who gather data about the current circumstances, look back into the lessons of history, and explore options for the best path forward.

And we have leaders – community leaders, corporate leaders, and political leaders – tasked with considering the input from these experts and setting policy accordingly, thus working toward long-range solutions.

That’s why it was so disheartening this past week to see political leaders trivialize two of the most urgent and complex issues, climate change and health care, by simply dismissing out of hand attempts toward resolution. No attempt to maintain the most promising ideas and work to improve the others. No attempt to formulate alternatives. No attempt to engage key stakeholders to assess the impact. No attempt to listen to the experts most knowlegeable about the issues and heed their advice. Just “no.”

The current situation with climate change and health care, as with other complex and entrenched societal challenges, results from both intended and unintended consequences of policy established over decades. There is not a single cause, just as there is not a single solution.

One thing is clear, the status quo will not fix the problem. Doubling down on the policies and practices that got us into this mess will not get us out of it. To quote Einstein, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Meanwhile, ongoing damage to our climate may be irreversible and without real solutions it will get worse. It is already causing dramatic loss of property and life. We need to tackle the problem by looking at sources of energy, infrastructure, and life style to  name a few considerations.

The continuing spiral of health care costs is putting access to care out of reach for many Americans. When it comes to health care, we outspend every other developed country and have some of the worst health outcomes. Reversing that trend has to involve innovation in payment mechanisms and incentives, how we deliver care, and earlier intervention and health management for all Americans.

Serious problems deserve serious attention. We need to refine and build on good ideas instead of tearing them down. There is no single perfect solution. Some ideas will work and some won’t. Through trial and error we will find the best way forward. But only if we sincerely listen, open our minds to alternate approaches, learn from our mistakes, and work together for the common good.

Nobody Special

I’m nobody special.
I’m not a brilliant scientist or a game-changing entrepreneur.
I’m not a world leader or the leader of a multi-national firm.
I’m not a bring-the-house-down entertainer or a bring-the-crowd-to-its-feet athlete.
I’m just ordinary.

And I’ve had a privileged life.
I’ve always had a comfortable home and food on the table.
I’ve always lived in a safe neighborhood and known public officials were there to protect me.
I attended a good college for which my parents paid, and got a good job through my parents’ connection.
I was born into extraordinary good fortune.

The accident of my birth into a secure and nurturing family doesn’t make me smarter than the child growing up hungry in unstable circumstances.
The coincidence of my zip code shouldn’t come with better schools and safer playgrounds than neighborhoods blighted by decades of disinvestment and neglect.
The arbitrary color of my skin shouldn’t entitle me to a presumption of good upbringing and benevolent intent to any greater degree than the black and brown faces we pass on the street.
Who I love and where I worship and how I dress and the condition of my health and abilities doesn’t make me any more or less worthy of dignity and opportunity than anyone else.

I have not earned my privilege.
I have taken advantage of opportunities gifted to me by a system of inequality.
I have not carried the burden of generations of violence, segregation, and discrimination regardless of hard work and determination.
I have built on the successes of generations of privilege that also took advantage of opportunities to work, move to better neighborhoods, and send their kids to better schools,

And I am passing that privilege on to my own children through tutoring and private lessons and college tuition and professional networks
As my parents did for me and as generations did before them.
I tell my children they are special, because of course they are.
But they are no more special than children born into a legacy of struggle.

I’m starting to see the stark contrast all around me.
It seeps into my awareness like water through cracks in the foundation.
The walls built to protect me from awareness of my privilege are beginning to crumble, and I see the brokenness.
With broader awareness, I hope to do my part to help build a stronger foundation for everyone.

Because we are all special.

What I love

I love sunrises and sunsets, the still of the early morning,
The way the light changes the color of the lake, the sound of lapping waves and rushing streams.

I love the squeaky crunch of fresh snow and the silence of snowflakes as they fall,
The burst of spring flowers, the smell of rain, warm sun on my face, and a soft breeze on my skin.

I love twinkling lights and the glow of candles and a crackling fire.

I love the deep exhale of sinking into bed at night, and the first sip of fresh hot coffee in the morning.

I love laughter, the faces of my kids bright with happiness, the safety of my husband’s embrace, and bear hugs.

Life is made up of fleeting precious moments if only we pause to notice.

What is balance?

It’s like riding a bike, or is it?

On a family vacation to Mammoth Lake California during the summer of 2010, I realized I could no longer stay upright on a bicycle. So much for the adage, “It’s like riding a bike – once you learn, you never forget how.”

It was the latest in a series of almost imperceptible changes in my balance. Some years earlier I had noticed occasional dizzy spells. I had fallen a few times – incidents I attributed to clumsiness. More recently I had begun to notice that turning my head side to side caused a momentary blackout, like a curtain falling in front of my eyes. And now, nearly 40 years after learning, I could no longer ride a bike.

A few months later I underwent the first of several surgeries to remove a large tumor, an acoustic neuroma, growing from the acoustic and vestibular nerve inside my head. That was when I started to understand the mechanics of balance.

As an HR professional and a working mom myself, I was familiar with the perpetual challenge of work/life balance. An objective and empathetic listener and natural peacekeeper, I was attuned to the importance of balanced perspectives. I had long been interested in excercise and nutrition and did my best to eat a balanced diet and maintain an overall healthy lifestyle. As I learned about the body’s physical balance system, I realized that each component of our physical balance could represent the balance we seek in all aspects of our lives.

The technical stuff

You may remember this from school. The inner ear is home to the vestibular system – the looped semicircular canals, utricule, and saccule that send signals along the acoustic and vestibular nerve to the brain, These signals alert the brain to the position and movements of our head and body.

Due to the size of my tumor, doctors chose a “translabyrinthine” sugical approach, which drills through the skull and into the inner ear. This provides the clearest access to the tumor by removing the semicircular canals, utricle, and saccule. No more signals sent along the vestibular nerve, which didn’t really matter since, as a result of the tumor and surgery, the nerve was no longer capable of sending a signal anyway. (It was also no longer capable of hearing, but that’s a different post!)

Fortunately, when the system is damaged on one side, the other side will compensate over time. Because my tumor had likely been growing slowly over a very long time, the vestibular system on the other side had been gradually taking over more of the balance function. I had an easier adjustment than people with a more sudden onset.

These are the first two lessons of balance:

1. It’s easier to maintain balance when change happens slowly, and
2. Use a back-up system.

Our physical reality

The soles of our feet give us important information to help maintain balance. Are my toes pointed uphill? Downhill? Am I on an even surface? (When the answer is no, I will have a lot more trouble maintaining balance!) When I’m feeling a little wobbly, the tips of my fingers against a wall or the back of a chair help to steady me. A solid surface confirms my current position.

The third lesson of balance:

3. Confirm your current reality.

The importance of vision

By relaying information about where we are and where we’re going, our eyes help us maintain balance. Sometimes it’s necessary to focus just on where I place my feet to avoid something that might throw me off balance (like a rock or a patch of ice.) But if my footsteps left a trail in those instances, you would see it weave unsteadily. Likewise, I stagger like a  drunk in the dark. When I can see where I’m going and focus my eyes ahead and down the road, I can maintain a steady, balanced pace.

The fourth lesson of balance:

4. See the path you’re on, and look not only where you are but where you’re going.

Put some muscle into it

Strong core muscles help you maintain balance even when the other systems fail. Is the ground uneven underneath your feet? Thigh muscles will steady you as you navigate the path. Are you walking in the dark? A strong abdomen and back will hold you upright. While practice across all components of the balance system will improve your balance, strengthening your core is the one that you can most improve with deliberate effort. Get in touch with your core muscles; know where they are and how to engage them. Exercise and strengthen them. Your balance will improve.

The fifth lesson of balance:

5. Find and strengthen your core – values, identity, relationships; these are muscles, strengthen them.

On the pages of this blog I’ll explore how these five lessons of balance might apply to all aspects of our lives. And because input helps us maintain balance, I’m interested in what you think!