With a Little Help For My Friends

When I was in high school, and again when I taught high school, most of the teachers had a theory that the 3rd quarter of the school year--the time between finals in mid-January and the week right before spring break--was the worst quarter.  Their reasoning was that

1. The weather was snow and cold, which everyone was sick of, and late February and into March, the weather was never consistent, sucker punching us with 60˚ morning that turned into biting 30˚ evenings.
2. There were fewer in-service days and almost zero holidays, not to mention very few fun, school-wide, social events to look forward to.
3. Christmas was over, and spring break seemed eons away, even if it was only two weeks out.

This theory attempted to explain why there were more in-school fights in 3rd quarter than the other quarters, why grades tended to slump around February, why more break ups happened.  I'm sure there is a correlation-does-not-imply-causation argument here.  Nevertheless, it felt like a sound theory at the time, and it made us all feel more validated in our 3rd-quarter miseries.

I'm currently wondering if that theory can be applied to out-of-school life, too.  I mean, Seasonal Affected Disorder is definitely a thing, there aren't more exciting holidays that come more often once you're not in school, and non-school-aged folk seem even more angsty about lack of social interaction than high schoolers ever were.

Regardless of the reason, I've been privy to the sadness and trials of several of my friends lately, more so than I remember being a couple months ago.  I'd love to tell you that I've handled these privy-counsels with grace and love, but all I can really say is that I did my best, which is not as good as I'd like it to be.

[Caveat] 
I remember in junior high, there was a group called "Natural Helpers."  The administration passed out little questionnaires at the beginning of the year with questions like, "What would you do if your friend came to you with ?" and, "What is the most important thing to do for someone who is struggling with ?"  At the end of the questionnaire, we had to put the name of one of our friends whom we felt comfortable going to with our own problems.  

After a couple of weeks, the administration notified certain people that they were now members of Natural Helpers.  They would go to a training retreat, have monthly or something meetings, and be expected to help their friends with all their problems.  

I was not asked to be a Natural Helper.  Back then, I was just hurt and confused as to why I wasn't a good enough friend to be one.  Now I'm legitimately upset because that would have been good training for anyone, and I didn't get it, and now I feel set back.  
[/Caveat]

Evidently Natural Helpers is a national organization.  Huh.

I've been through hard times in the past.  I've experienced painful loss, I've been through bad break ups, I've felt like a failure, I've been ashamed of myself, I've been disappointed in those around me, I've felt lost and confused, I've been unsure of myself, I've felt betrayed...suffice it to say that I've lived a life and haven't magically avoided issues.  All of those trials have given me tremendous sympathy for people going through rough patches that resemble my own, (They have also given me a fair bit of empathy for people experience pain I can't even imagine, but that's a different story).

Once I find myself on the other side of one particular hardship or another, my first instinct [after celebrating hard with some video games and a good book or two] is to make sure no one else has to go through what I did/have/will.  When you've been in a pit, felt it's cold, damp, darkness, and you see someone else about to fall in, you aren't about to sit blithely by and watch.

For a while, I thought this was enough.  I thought wanting to help was what mattered.  Especially as a Christian, I thought that if I wanted to help and I prayed to God to tell me the words to say, to give me the wisdom I lacked, I could be to struggling friends the comfort they needed.

But in this 3rd-quarter time of struggles for seemingly all of my close friends, I am finding that that is absolutely not true.  Just wanting to help is not enough.  Wanting desperately to lay myself over that pit like a net to keep someone from falling in, or fashioning my body into a rope to pull them out...neither of those is going to help them the way I want it to.

The reasons for this strategy's failure actually relates closely back to my last post, about non-profit volunteering.  When I come into someone else's trial and think myself the expert in ways that they aren't themselves, I am doing what all those well-meaning education students do to the Boys and Girls Club, only I am doing it to my friends.

Worse than that, I am not sure that my net-stretching and rope-throwing is always right-intentioned. I fear that, like the pretty picture above says, I am more trying to help myself than I am trying to help them.  Watching my friends in pain is not easy.  Watching my friends in pain that I have personally experienced is even harder, because I almost feel that pain again.  I want to end their pain so that I can end my own, or I want to end their pain in ways that I couldn't end my own back when I was personally in it.

Moreover, if I persist in trying to end their pain and their pain doesn't end, I might do them the immense disservice of blaming them for continuing to hurt.  I've done everything I can for them, I might think.  If they don't feel better, if they don't solve this problem of theirs, that's their fault.  If they would only take my advice, they would feel better.  I get frustrated with them and misplace my emotions.  Instead of being righteously angry with the forces that put them in the situation they're in, I am frustrated with them for not getting out of it.

I have to constantly remind myself that I am not the expert on life's troubles.  I have to remember that I am not my friend; I do not instantly know what will help them.  I have to remember that, when in pain, advice is not always what is wanted, not always what is needed.  When it is solicited, I may give it, but until then, maybe what they need is someone to sit in that pit with them, hold them, give them warm soup, let them destroy magical trinkets in Dumbledore's office, watch reruns of Boy Meets World.  And after they've done that, maybe they'll need someone to make sure they're taking their medication, someone to make sure they're eating, someone who offers to take them out to a movie or to dinner, or to see their friends.  Someone who shovels the driveway when they can't get out of bed, but then encourages them to go to work anyway.  Support doesn't always mean advice.  Sometimes it is a more subtle, more challenging thing to give.

I'm sure there are times, too, when it's not healthy for me to try to be that person to someone else.  When I am personally wrestling with my own demons, I may not be able to adequately comfort someone else.  When they're problems are too big and serious for me to try to tackle on my own, I should probably leave them to more experienced people.  When that person doesn't trust me, or when I am the source of their problems, I may just make the situation worse by trying to personally help.

But like Leo, there may always be something I can do, even if it just to point them in the right direction.

What do you think?  Is my theory of "helping" a sound one?  Are there other times when you think it's not a good idea to help someone?  Is there a limit to the help you should offer?  Is this a subject that is close to your heart?

Good, Old-Fashioned, Volunteerism

I work at my local chapter of The Boys and Girls Clubs of America.  It's a non-profit, and it's located really close to a lot of colleges and universities, so we see a pretty steady stream of volunteers, especially throughout the school year.

Specifically, I work in the Homework Room.  We get kids of all ages and all levels and most neighboring schools, so there's a lot to deal with from an educational perspective, and it can be pretty chaotic.  When we don't get any volunteers, either because the college kids are on break or because it's just a slow day, we really feel it, so I am always over the moon to have any volunteers.  Even if they can't help the kids with homework because they don't know how to do it (trying to learn "new math" as a 22-year-old can be harder thing than you'd think), they're usually pretty good at distracting the rowdier kids enough until someone can help them.

Every once in a while, though, we'll get those kinds of volunteers.  If you work with a lot of volunteers, you probably know the volunteers I'm talking about.  Maybe they're lazy, or maybe they're not.  Maybe they're smart, or maybe they're not.  Maybe they have good intentions, or maybe they don't.  Maybe they're a know-it-all or a type-A personality, or maybe they're not.  Whatever the reason, they make my job harder or less pleasant.

[I want to reiterate: I am always glad to have volunteers.  Even "those" kinds.  Just because they make my day more difficult doesn't mean they aren't an asset.

However, if, after I describe my experiences with "those" kinds of volunteers, you realize that you frequently are one, I would highly encourage you to reevaluate your methods and change the way you interact at your chosen institutions of pro bono employment. ]

So, forthwith, I present to you, for your consideration, a list of things not to do as a volunteer.  It is probably not exhaustive.

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1. Think yourself the expert

At the club we often get college students who are studying education and need volunteer hours with elementary-school kids to graduate or to apply to grad school.  Some of them seem to be under the impression that the club does not have any education professionals, nor has it ever had any education professionals, and so they consider themselves mana from heaven, a light in the dark place, Irish Spring amongst the unwashed masses.

Without asking, they try to run things or turn our Homework Room into their ideal classroom (which won't work; believe me, I've naïvely tried).  They give unsolicited advice about this and that, and offer to help make the Homework Room into a more orderly and scholarly environment.  They are appalled by the students' behavior and take it upon themselves to right the wrong of the leadership that has come before.

If these people come back more than once, I would listen to them more readily.  If they invested in these kids for more than just two hours a semester, I would take their desired instructional role more seriously.  If their answer to the question, "How often do you think you'll volunteer here?" were something other than "Oh, I'm really not sure; my schedule is so hectic these days," I might not be annoyed that they think they can do in one day what I haven't been able to do in months.

2. Make a mess and leave

I mean this both physically and metaphorically.  Some volunteers use the books in the Homework Room to read to the kindergarten girls.  There are puzzles on the bookshelves, too, and some counting games.  The volunteers will take over the table by the door and spread out their educational goodies and play with the kids for all of five minutes before the kids get antsy, as they are wont to do, and ask them to go open the art room or the game room or the gym.  Sometimes, one person will stay behind and at least put the supplies back in some semblance of order, but many times, they will just leave that table a mess.

Sometimes a volunteer will be really popular with some of the kids.  If the volunteer is into sports, some kids will want them to play them in basketball.  If the volunteer has really nice hair, some kids will spend some time playing with it.  That's all fine and good.  But when a volunteer comes into the Homework Room to help kids with homework, it is advisable that the students finish their work before they run off to play. That's just common sense, but it's also courtesy to me and the other staff members who have to deal with the students who come in fifteen minutes before closing and ask us to help them with their mountains (because these kids really do get a lot) of homework because they haven't done it yet.

3. If there is a problem that you can't handle, don't just pretend it doesn't exist

This could be anything--students don't have pencils and the volunteer doesn't know where to find the extras, one student is clearly copying another student's homework, "new math" is too confusing--but frequently, with our students, it is a behavioral issue.  Kids will be bullying someone, two kids will get into a fight, one student is distracting the other students from working, that sort of thing.  Instead of either a) trying their best to deal with it in the common-sense ways they know how or b) bringing the issue to the attention of a staff member, the volunteers often just sit and pretend not to notice.

With problems like pencils and "new math," the fallout is not so terrible; I have to get the pencils myself or the kid has to ask someone else for help.  With bullying, fighting, and distractions, an unaddressed problem tends to build and build until it explodes and the whole rest of the day is shot having to deal with it.  

4. Forget what you're there to do

I saved this one for last because it's too common and uninteresting to give too much lip service, but it's so simple and crucial.

So many people (my high-school self included) are required to do some sort of community service or get a certain number of volunteer hours.  I don't know what percentage of those people actually hate serving their community, but it seems frustratingly high.  If you're going to volunteer somewhere, you really should do what they ask you to do, which, frequently, is not to do nothing or to sit on your phone and never make eye-contact with anyone.  You're already sacrificing your time.  What is the point of wasting it, too?

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I grew up volunteering through my church, my school, and various other community organizations; my mom made it a priority for all of us while we were growing up.  While I didn't always thoroughly enjoy the work I did or the fact that it wasn't paid, I can't remember a single position I held that wasn't a learning experience that was overall fun or exciting.  Like my mom, I think helping people in different contexts with different needs is a vital part of belonging to a society and becoming an educated citizen of the world.  But there are right ways and wrong ways to do it, and I hope everyone (including me) can learn to not suck at serving.

Obligatory Post about Resolutions

I'm going to be writing a post later (that, when it's finished, I shall link to here) about resolutions more generally, because I do have a bit to say on the topic.  (Friends and regular readers are now saying, "She has a bit to say about tying her shoes and flossing, too, I bet.")  For now, I just want to show you my new attempt at actually making 2014 a different year from 2013.  Because we all know that if they end up being twins, I'm going to throw something large through a plate-glass window.

For Christmas, my wonderful and talented friend Christie gave me a beautiful hand-made journal.  A few days prior to Christmas, I outfitted it as my 2014 Planner.  Like...literally, a planner.  I put plans in it.

And in the back cover, I've started a list of resolutions I have.  Some of them are things that I have to continually check in on over the course of the year (#s 1 and 5), some of them are monthly goals (#s 3 and 4), and some of them are things I will be able to check off as I go (# 2), and there is space for more to add as I go through the year and new things come up.

There are a lot of pages in the journal, and I plan to fill them up with dreams of what I will do as well as descriptions of things I have done so that, when I look back on 2014, I can remember it as a proactive and exciting time, even if things start getting rough and going south.

This post is a) a reminder to myself that I did this so that I don't forget to keep using it and b) a request for you to give me ideas of resolutions.  As you can see, I need at least 9 more.  Anything you think I should add?

Reading Makes me Question Myself

I have, once again, written somewhere else instead of writing here.  I apologize (a little) and I hope you will check out the post instead of hating me forever.

It's late. Don't judge.

So, like, what is the evolutionary advantage of the human nose? Like, what is the evolutionary reason that we are not all Voldemort's running around with two slits in our faces?

Or, better yet, if we came from monkeys, why don't we have monkey noses? What makes our nose evolutionarily superior to that of a monkey? Like, is it something about rain sliding off of it easier? Isn't that what are eyebrows are for...?

Guys, I seriously need to know the answer to this question. I can't sleep right now, and this is seriously why. Someone needs to answer this question for me.

I keep looking in the mirror, and the longer I spend staring at my nose, the less I understand why I have it. And the more I question whether I will ever be able to sleep again.

Only you can prevent wildfires.

The question is, does that unique ability have something to do with your nose?

Post-Graduate Writer seeking...actually good writing

As many of you saw in this video, I've been writing for almost as long as I can remember.  Throughout the various seasons of my life, writing has been for me a hobby, my identity, my anti-drug, and the one social activity I felt most comfortable with.  But recently, writing has become that old winter coat you keep in the closet, that has lots of good memories, but for whatever reason--maybe it's too small, maybe the fabric has a weird pattern--you don't like to wear it outside anymore, and when you do, you can't stop thinking about what everyone else must be thinking about your stupid coat.

The metaphor isn't perfect: I still love writing.  I can't count the number of books, articles, essays, poems, blog posts, and stories I've read in the past year that have inspired my own creation.  I get phrases, characters, scenes, and settings in my head all the time, as I always have, and I know they are just asking me to write them.

It's the sitting down to write them that I dread.  Perhaps you've noticed, in reading my blog, that I have a disturbing tendency towards didacticism.  I don't like it, and I'm pretty sure most blog readers don't like it, but I can't seem to help it.  It's not what the English Department at Calvin College taught me to write, and it's certainly not what I read.  And arguably the worst part about my didactic writing is that it's not even good didacticism.  It I could pump out an allegory or fable, I would be at least a little impressed.  Even essays with well-cited sources, perhaps with charts and pictures, or anything like that to actually support my position would be welcomed at this point.  But all I seem to be able to do is write long posts with sort of morals at the end.

And this is true of more than just my blog posts.  My NaNoWriMo novels for the past two years have been abysmally moralistic in not-so-subtle and not-so-artistic ways.  In 2011, one of my characters was gay and had a mind-numbing soap-box speech about his struggles and how no one is on his side, and in 2012, every artistic choice I made was checked against my desire to have the characters be gender-progressive and good role models for struggling young girls and boys.

Calvin College and its fantastic writing professors taught me art, where to find it, how to find it within myself, how to create it, and how to hone it.  But Calvin College's liberal arts core, as well as my education classes and history classes taught me that the world is broken, that there are things terribly wrong with all corners of society, and that the only thing capable of fixing them is the love, the grace, and the justice of God.  They also taught me that God works through his people, his "agents of renewal" (kind of a buzz phrase at Calvin...) to bring light to the darkened places, that fighting for social justice is a way that God's people can be conduits of his grace and justice, bringing The Kingdom here on Earth.

Now, technically speaking, good art and effective social justice are not two sides of a coin.  They can coexist in this world; they can even be of one energy flowing together.  The only problem for me is that I seem to have missed the lessons where smart, talented, and good people taught me how to create that socially just art without boring people to death.  So what I've got instead are poor copies of someone else's greater genius that neither emphasize beauty in creation--as art does--nor prompt valuable change--as social justice does.

When I look back at the works I did in high school--the short stories, the poems, and the one novel--I, like most artists looking back at old work, cringe at all the mistakes all the shoddy craftsmanship.  But honestly, I wish I could get back to that.  I wish I could go back to just writing to write.  The artistry might suck, but it would feel better.  It would stop being this embarrassment that I stow away in a dark closet somewhere and hope never to have to wear in public.  I'm doing nobody any good by writing the way I do now.

If anyone has any suggestions for how to get back into the heart of writing, I'm definitely willing to hear them.  What I'm attempting right now is reading fiction, lots of fiction; good fiction, bad fiction, fiction I like, and fiction I don't, in an attempt to jumpstart my desire to create.  I've also got a lot of writer's-workshop-type books around my apartment that I'm trying to use.  And I've started a writing discipline again, where I write for at least an hour a day for no one at all, maybe on one project, maybe on small one-shot things, or maybe on something that will never see the light of day.

I don't like funks.

What's Mine is Ours

The other day, my boyfriend Ben, his roommate Steve, and I went to CMU's campus to play some badminton.  Steve and Ben picked up the racquets and net--because, strictly speaking, I'm not a student, per se, so I needed to fly under the radar if I could--and then we tromped around the athletic facilities looking for a suitable place to set up and play.

I don't know much about CMU's athletic facilities, and I was just following the guys around, going through doors they opened and up stairs they gestured to, but there are evidently only two areas outfitted for badminton play.  The first place we went to was also outfitted for volleyball, and was evidently outfitted so well that the official volleyball team was scheduled to practice there, therefor we had to leave.  So we went to another place (which, as I recall, was referred to by a set of letters that stood for some words, but I can't remember the letters or the words right now) that happened to be swarming with eager basketball players.  They were just playing pick-up games, and there were four hoops, but evidently, one of the courts was designated for badminton-specific use.  It wasn't being used as one; someone had taken down the net and a bunch of people were playing full-court basketball.

As I am, strictly speaking, not a student, I let Ben and Steve handle the court situation.  Since the badminton-ness of the gym was officially sanctioned, both Ben and Steve felt that it was within their rights to ask the basketball people to split into half court and let them set up the net for play.  They promised we'd only be there for an hour at maximum, and gave them ten minutes to wrap up their game.

Needless to say, it was an awkward arrangement; forgetting the fact that both halves of the basketball court remained in use throughout our little badminton match so that we kept nearly beaming people with our racquets, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that we had just inconvenienced a bunch of people, not to mention that those people were all generally bigger and sweatier than Ben, Steve, or I.  As my Girl Scout training helped tie the knots to secure the net, my escapist tendencies imagined a wonderful world in which such socially awkward situations could be avoided.  "Maybe I could buy a badminton net..." I mused.  "If I owned a badminton net, we'd never inconvenience big basketball guys again, and we could play whenever we wanted.  That would be great."

Obviously, the thought was short-lived.  I am not going to buy a badminton net.  CMU has them, and I'm even allowed to use them as a guest of Ben and Steve (though I didn't, strictly speaking, follow protocol on this particular visit) and then I don't have to pay for any damages, I wouldn't have to find a place to store them, and I always have a place to play, even when it's raining or when I don't own a yard.

The longer we played, the less I cared about how we'd inconvenienced the basketball guys.  I mean, yeah, I still felt bad about getting in their way, and I couldn't help but think how ridiculous it must have looked to them: three people pushing out ten people just to play some vaguely old-fashioned game with pathetic-looking skinny racquets and a dinky little birdie.  But when they stumbled into our part of the court, they apologized and one of us would say, "No worries," and when we hit one of them with one of our gaming instruments, we apologized and they would say, "No worries."  And at the end of 40 minutes, Ben was too tired to keep going (playing single to Steve's and my doubles) and we packed up and left, giving them their court back.  The rules set down by the CMU athletic facility authorities did their work, the compromise was struck between us, and everyone survived and got to enjoy a bit of physical exertion.

Public goods tend to do this, I think.  Public parks, public schools, public hospitals, public sidewalks...they force us to interact with each other, to practice compromise, tact, and civility.  They may not explicitly teach us the inherent value of the people around us, but when fair rules are in place, they implicitly teach us to acknowledge other people's rights as designated by those rules.  Public goods give us access to thoughts and feelings that are not natively our own, but that might help shape, redefine, or strengthen those thoughts and feelings that are.

Private goods are nice: I like owning a car, in large part because it means I am not at the mercy of the bus routes and schedules, and I don't have to worry so much about the size or shape of the things I need to carry from point A to point B, as long as they fit somewhere in my trunk or backseat.  My car does probably cost me significantly more than bus fare would, between gas, insurance, maintenance, and depreciation, so I always have to make sure I'm getting what I pay for, that my car remains a better option than the public transportation system.

But sometimes I pass a bus stop where people stand waiting, or I watch people climbing on or off the sectional behemoths as they stop on the side of the road, and I wonder if I'd feel more connected to the people around me if I were forced to get that close to them every day.  I live alone, I don't have a job, and my neighborhood is pretty quiet, so I can avoid human contact for days if I want to.  Add my car into that, and the isolation only deepens.

For me, for now, this isolation is primarily just a sort of depressing reality.  I don't see many people, and most people don't see or talk to me.  But over time, such separation from society could conceivably become something more sinister.  If public places teach us compromise and tactfulness, over-privatization could cause those skills to atrophy, perhaps to the point where not only am I not explicitly seeing the value in the lives of other human beings, but I start denying those human beings' rights as human beings.  If I were to become completely self-sufficient, without need or desire for any public goods, that sufficiency might become my only goal, the only thing I fight for, in which case, the needs of others seem of little consequence to me.  Suddenly, I don't care about the other people on the road, their convenience, or their safety; I only care that I have someplace to be and I've got to get there, so I'm going to do what it takes to get me there, no matter the cost to others.

I'm fairly certain this hypothetical is an exaggeration, an extreme form of isolationism that probably only occurs in concurrence with some form of serious social or mental deficiency.  Nonetheless, as I played badminton that day, I wondered if, perhaps, there might be a connection between a person's consumption of public goods and their political leanings.  Could someone who frequents their public library ever consider school vouchers to be a socially responsible response to the decline in public education?  Would someone who only ever drank water out of a Brita filter think that Social Security needed to be completely revised, not just privatized?

Obviously, someone who uses public transportation has a vested interest in that transportation's funding and subsequent quality, but does habitual use of public goods and services influence a person's outlook on public goods more generally?

What about you?  What public goods and services to you rely on most heavily, and how do you think they've influenced your understanding of the value of the public?  I really want to know.