What does it mean to deserve?

Today’s culture is always telling us that we deserve more. Advertisers deluge us with images of shiny new products, declaring that we should indulge because we’ve earned it. Self-help authors say that we can attract great success by repeating affirmations along the lines of “I deserve to be happy” or “Next year I’m going to earn X amount of money because I am worth it.”

While that’s better than going around with our heads full of negative messages about not being good enough, it still leaves us measuring our worth against what other people have. Because deserving has to do with merit, if one person deserves something and gets it, then by implication others who don’t have it are not as deserving. Maybe they didn’t work as hard or couldn’t stay focused on those happy thoughts. From there it’s just a short step to believing that if someone is poor, unhappy, or sick, it must be their own fault.

Nobody ever wins that blame game, though. It doesn’t matter how many new cars we have in the garage, how well our investments are performing, or how healthy and happy we feel at the moment. Simply put, there is no way anyone can go through life always having more health, wealth, and happiness than the other seven billion people in the world. So if we’ve got the attitude that those who have less are to blame for their own misfortunes, then we naturally end up blaming ourselves for not being as rich and famous as those who have more—and there are always plenty of billionaires and celebrities in the news to make us feel undeserving, if we’re so inclined.

Who needs all that judgmental drama? We’d do better to take the concept of deserving back to its roots—to the original Latin word meaning “serve.” Historically, a deserving person was a good servant. Earning money had nothing to do with it—most servants earned little more than their keep, and many were slaves. Deserving, in its original root meaning, was about being loyal to one’s master and devoted to one’s work.
 

Roots of trees in a forest.

(Creative Commons image via flickr)
 

Although we no longer live in a world of masters and servants, we still spend much of our time serving others. Whether it’s by working for wages, owning a small business, caring for our family members, creating beautiful art, or volunteering with a charity after retirement, there are many ways to be a good servant. Giving our work to others is in our nature as human beings, as members of a social species. That’s how we create meaningful accomplishments and leave the world a better place for having been part of it.

Money measures something else entirely. In a capitalist system, money is supposed to be a means of efficiently allocating resources. When sales of a product or service increase, more people invest in it. Some of the profits go toward developing more advanced technologies; then new industries emerge and create jobs, more people can afford to buy products and invest, and the economy keeps on expanding. Of course, it’s not always as efficient as it could be; but that is generally how it functions.

Most investors, with the notable exception of socially-conscious funds, couldn’t care less about whether a company’s goods provide a benefit to humanity. They just want quick profits. A company may have a wonderfully innovative product that would solve many of the world’s problems; but unless enough buyers can be found at a high enough profit margin, nobody’s going to invest in it just because it is deserving in the abstract. The free market is not about making moral judgments and rewarding those who have faith in their products; it is only about getting bottom-line results.

Doing our work with passion and love—being good servants—is not measurable in terms of money or fame. All other things being equal, a passionate worker would make a better impression on people and would be more successful in the conventional sense. But of course, all other things are never equal. We live in a very complicated world where unexpected stuff happens all the time, so why blame ourselves or anyone else for not reaching some arbitrary level of success? When we stay focused on doing our work of service, other things will fall into place in due course.

When I started cleaning up my basement a few weeks ago and got rid of two worn-out desk chairs, amidst the junk there was also another chair. This one wasn’t in bad enough shape to throw away, but it never had been very useful either. It was just a cheap little task chair, okay for my kids to sit in when they were small, but not comfortable for an adult to use regularly. I donated it at the thrift store; here’s a photo in the parking lot after taking it out of my car.
 

Old desk chair in the parking lot of the thrift store. 

While writing this post, I found myself wondering if there might be some kind of subconscious symbolism in hoarding old chairs. Something like musical chairs, perhaps—a fear that the music will stop and there won’t be enough to go around? Then again, to paraphrase Freud, sometimes a chair is just a chair. And this particular task chair is no longer cluttering my basement, so I’ve made a bit of progress.

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

Diva Dog didn’t have the best morning today. She has a small irritated area on her belly, so she has been wearing a cone to stop her from picking at it while it heals. Of course, she hates the cone, so she has been making her best efforts to look pitiful and convince us to take it off. She probably could win an award for best actress or blues singer with some of the poor-little-me noises she makes.
 

Sad-looking puppy with a plastic cone on her head. 

All of us have bad days when we feel like singing the blues; but overdoing the self-pity just makes us look silly to others while feeling worse about things ourselves, and that’s not a good way to go through life. Though a dog may not be capable of understanding that a bad day soon will be over, people would do better to keep in mind that “this too shall pass.”

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

So I’m standing in front of the washing machine on Sunday afternoon, not really thinking about anything besides putting in a load of shirts. It’s a dark day with heavy clouds hanging low. That is all right because I don’t have to go anywhere. It seems like a calm, quiet day with no distractions going on. But when I look a bit deeper, I realize that I’ve got two conflicting lines of subconscious thought running through my head.

#1: What a nice, quiet, peaceful day for relaxing. Just what a Sunday ought to be. No worries. I’m just standing here being myself in the moment. It’s all good.

#2: So where’s all the productive work today? That blog isn’t going to write itself, now is it? And when was the last time anything got done on a story? Writers are supposed to bubble over with fountains of spontaneous creative energy. None of that seems to be around today, so there must be something wrong.

I close the washer door, start the cycle running, and step out of the laundry room. The vertical blinds have been drawn back from the sliding glass door in the kitchen, showing a view of the backyard where the slender branches of the willow hedge are whipping around in the breeze. Pale white catkins are just starting to open.
 

View of my backyard fence and willow branches through the kitchen door. 

Meanwhile, the inner dialogue continues.

#1: This would be a perfect day to curl up on the couch with a good book and a cup of hot tea. Mmm, vanilla caramel tea…

#2: Why waste a quiet day that would be just right for writing? Tomorrow is another busy Monday—always a lot going on. Time is precious! Nothing will get done without seizing the moment!

Walking into the kitchen, out of habit I find myself trying to mediate the internal conflict—how about drinking that cup of vanilla caramel tea while composing a blog post? But then I decide it might be more useful to drag my subconscious assumptions up into the light of day (what light there is on this dark winter afternoon) and take a good look at them.

The first line of thought seems pretty simple—it assumes that I’m not in a hurry today, which the empirical evidence of being in a quiet house on a Sunday afternoon would tend to support. The second line of thought assumes that the time available for creative pursuits is scarce and must be snatched whenever it is found. There is some historical evidence in its favor; in past years when I let myself get too busy, my writing suffered as a result.

But at present I’m just standing in my kitchen with nothing in particular to do, and I can’t see any good reason to hoard time as if it’s a scarce resource. Like anything else, creative energy gets harder to hold when one grabs at it desperately, rather than just letting it flow gently along its natural course. I ought to be able to read a book on a quiet Sunday, while trusting that I’ll find inspiration for stories and blog posts later.

“We’ll see about that,” scoffs Voice #2, “it just sounds like an excuse for laziness. What’s to be done when no inspiration shows up?”

That’s when the muse peeks out and settles the matter by deciding to turn this entire internal conversation into a blog post—but not right away. Truth be told, she’s feeling just a tad miffed about being hurried. Writing the post later will work just as well. At present, there’s a nice comfy couch and a cup of vanilla caramel tea calling my name!

After a dusty smoke detector set off our home alarm, we realized that we had never replaced the smoke detectors. They’re supposed to be replaced every 10 years because after that they become unreliable. So my husband ordered some new smoke detectors (it’s very good that he is handy!) and went around the house with a stepladder replacing them all. This photo shows the old ones on the kitchen table.
 

Seven old smoke detectors on a table. 

Replacing smoke detectors counts as home maintenance rather than clutter cleanup, but I decided to make this Sunday’s post a public service announcement. Gentle readers, if the smoke detectors in your house are as ancient as mine were, get some new ones! Otherwise they might go off when there’s no smoke or, much worse, not go off when there’s a real fire.

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

While the groundhog was seeing its shadow on Monday morning, I looked out my back window and found snow flurries falling at the same time the sun was shining. As a child I would have thought that looked magical, rather than grumbling about not wanting six more weeks of winter. So I took a picture to remind myself that how we feel about things is all a matter of how we look at them.
 

Sun shining on my deck while snow flurries are falling. 

The flurries can’t be seen very well through the screen, but I think the photo shows at least a little of the soft magical look. Although it’s clear and cold here today, the sunshine coming through the windows feels warm. Every moment of our days is like a high-resolution snapshot packed full of little details, and we’re always free to choose which ones get our attention!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

It’s in the air. We can taste it on every breath—all that restless energy flowing through the culture, dancing wildly into the future, calling us to expand into infinite possibilities and create all the beautiful things in our minds that are just waiting for us to make them real. Life is supposed to be joyful, it tells us. There is so much more we can create and become. We only have to imagine it.

So we meditate, we visualize, we say affirmations, and we believe it’s within our grasp. We try to harness that wonderful creative energy to run before us like the chariot horses of the Roman arena, hooves pounding in a glorious cloud of dust as the finish line nears. We read self-help books that encourage us to follow our passions, whatever they may be, and trust that the Universe will reward our devotion—by sending a big fat bank account our way.

And I’m left wondering just how the passionate desire to create beautiful things got tangled up in our minds with Wall Street-style greed. Why are we so tempted to visualize ourselves quitting our jobs and effortlessly raking in a gazillion dollars from the books we haven’t written yet, the songs we haven’t composed yet, or the movies we haven’t produced yet? Why does everything have to be monetized on a grand scale? Seriously, are those sparkling joyful surges of creative energy telling us to grab the most toys? What’s going on here?

In general, whenever a narrative spreads so widely through the culture, it reflects something that already exists in present-day reality. I don’t mean to say that we’re all ruled by greed, but that we live in a time of vastly expanding possibilities. Modern technologies and cultural changes have empowered us to pursue careers we couldn’t have imagined in the past. So naturally we’re not willing to resign ourselves to a lifetime of soul-numbing drudgery just because people once thought there was nothing better. That, I believe, is what’s at the root of the “financial freedom” narrative—it’s not so much about old-fashioned greed, but about seizing those shiny new potential-filled moments and making the most of them. Money represents possibility.

And that’s all very well in itself; but the downside of equating money with possibility is that when the gazillion dollars never actually show up, it can feel like a personal failure, rather than simply reflecting the fact of a sputtering global economy that still needs time to expand. All that amazing creative energy takes a backseat to obsessively visualizing the big fat bank account and wondering what went wrong.

There is also a subtler trap, which is that we have been culturally conditioned to use the word “dream” to describe doing what we enjoy on a regular basis. That language puts it into the realm of distant fantasy, rather than within reach in everyday life. As a result, we can’t just be happy writing a blog or a novel or whatever because that’s what the creative energy calls us to do in this moment—no, that’s not good enough, we’ve got to have the glittering fantasy of being a super-wealthy celebrity. Otherwise, the culture might always dismiss our efforts as insignificant and leave us stuck forever in a dismal wage-slave existence.

Of course, we don’t really need that big fat bank account before we can take control of our lives. Nor is there any requirement to be a glitzy celebrity before anyone appreciates our creative projects. In fact, there are many celebrities and rich people who are notorious for their totally messed-up lives and always get laughed at in the tabloids. So if wealth and fame aren’t really where control, possibility, and respect come from—then how do we go about getting them?

Simply put, it’s all in the details. Not so much in those bright gleaming visualized details of future grand accomplishments, but in the words and images we use to frame our everyday acts—the details in present tense. I don’t, for example, dream of being a writer. I write stories. Fact. I write a blog. Fact. I control what I write and what I publish. Fact. These aren’t dreams—they are options I have chosen from among the many possibilities open to me in the here and now.

And though I can’t control what other people think of my writing, I have a fairly good idea of how to find readers who appreciate my work. First of all, I need to be consistently kind and courteous, showing others the same respect I’d like to get from them. It’s also important to take the time to put together quality work, free of careless errors. I need to be open to learning from constructive criticism and improving myself and my writing. And last but not least, I just need to get into the flow, relax, and have fun! If I became rich and famous, I still would need to do these things to earn genuine respect. There are no shortcuts to be bought.

I set up my blog on Kindle two weeks ago—not because I had any expectation of making money from it, but just because it seemed like a fun thing to do, as well as a convenience for any readers who might prefer following blogs on Kindle. Here’s a partial screenshot of my page on Amazon, which itself has a screenshot of my blog. I decided to put it into this post because the recursive effect looks cool.
 

Screenshot of my blog subscription page on Amazon.com. 

So far nobody has subscribed to it, but that’s okay because it is just a fun present-tense detail of the intentional life I’m in the process of creating. If I had been seriously planning to monetize my blog, I probably would’ve felt disappointed about not becoming an overnight gazillionaire. And we all know what we attract when we feel disappointed and unsuccessful—yup, more of the same. Simply enjoying the small details may not be as glamorous as the rich celebrity fantasy, but I believe it works out better as time goes by and more of those details fall into place.

Several years ago, my mom gave me two pieces of framed artwork featuring sketches of flowering plants in the style of old-fashioned botany books. There wasn’t any place in my house that seemed quite right for them at the time. Because they were pretty, I kept them for potential future use in converting my kids’ study into a sitting room. I thought they would make for a restful, contemplative ambience.
 

Two framed pictures of flowers. 

I still don’t have a sitting room, though. The computer I’m using to type this post is on my daughter’s old desk, which definitely needs replacing. And I want a comfy place where I can sit and put my feet up when I read books or write blog drafts by hand. Maybe a recliner chair? And then I need to pick out a paint color for the walls, and new carpet would be good too…

So, with all that left to do, I decided that I’d just take the pictures to the thrift store and let someone else buy and enjoy them. Even though it’s possible they might match the way I decorate the room, it’s more likely they wouldn’t match. And honestly, after I’ve had so much clutter sitting around in my house for years, I just want something new and fresh anyway!

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

I could hear the clatter of freezing rain when I woke up this morning. My daughter’s puppy (a.k.a. Diva Dog) wasn’t at all happy about being put outside to do her business, but stood next to the sliding glass door looking at us with big sad eyes as if to say, “You really expect me to go out in this?” The sky was so dark that when I sat down at my desk, I turned on the flameless candle that I keep to brighten my workspace on such mornings. I bought it to remind myself that I always have plenty of time (as discussed in this post) because time is a constant and there is only now.
 

Flameless candle beside mouse pad 

The rain didn’t last long, and the sun came out for a while, looking brighter and higher than in the past months—as if sending a message that winter’s end is not far away. This year I haven’t felt stuck indoors and gloomy because of the cold weather, although not many days have been above the average January temperatures. I believe that’s the result of making efforts to cultivate a more positive outlook and to appreciate the moment. Even on a dark morning with freezing rain, there is always something to appreciate, starting with the simple fact of being indoors with cozy warm central heating!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

January 28, 2015 · 4 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Dear people who gossiped about me online five years ago,

If you are reading my blog, no doubt you’re surprised to see this entry, after all the time I spent pretending you didn’t exist. Rather than saying anything to you, I decided to treat you as far beneath my notice and deserving no attention whatsoever. I told myself that I wasn’t even going to think about you because, as the saying goes, brooding on a grudge is like letting a person one despises live rent-free in one’s head.

But the grudge never actually went away, even though I cultivated an attitude of being much too tough to care. As long as I despised you, I couldn’t evict you. That negativity got dumped like toxic waste into the depths of my psyche, bubbling and reeking as it slowly decomposed. So I came to the conclusion that the only sensible thing to do was to forgive you instead.

In every situation, there are useful lessons that can be taken away. Forgiveness has to do with appreciating them and moving on. So I asked myself: What insights did I gain five years ago? In what ways has my life changed for the better since then? Are there any parts of that experience for which I can honestly feel gratitude?

There’s no doubt I benefited from learning the value of personal branding. Because I wasn’t a business owner or a celebrity, it never had occurred to me that there might be something to gain from building a consistent “brand” online. I didn’t understand that without proactively defining myself, I was letting other people’s random remarks determine my public image.

When that lesson sank in, I registered my name as a domain and started using it for my email and for this blog. Most likely, some other Meg Evans would have taken the domain name if I had waited much longer; so the fact that I took timely action, which I probably wouldn’t have done absent the unpleasant wake-up call, is the second item on the gratitude list.

Although at present I am using this domain only for a personal blog, I’m also building a solid online foundation for potential future business activities. For example, if I began writing ebooks, I would already have a well-established website where readers easily could find me. I wouldn’t need to make major changes to my site, but could just add a page about the books—easy peasy! That’s item #3 on the gratitude list.

Another related lesson I took to heart is the value of authenticity. In the past, I had been overly cautious about keeping the details of my personal life out of other people’s view. I worried that if I said too much about my fears, weaknesses, or mistakes, then I would leave myself vulnerable to nasty remarks from bullies. So I avoided such topics, believing I was safer that way.

But in fact, hiding my true self didn’t make me any less vulnerable. On the contrary, because my acquaintances lacked a good sense of who I was on a personal level, they were more likely to be influenced by gossip than if they had known more about me. If I had allowed my confident, authentic self to come out and sparkle in all my social interactions, embracing candor instead of surrendering to fear, then everyone would have known better than to spread rumors that obviously didn’t match who I was.

And finally, I’ve developed a healthier sense of how to build and maintain nurturing relationships. When I was younger, I still had a lot to learn about setting boundaries. I put up with negative stuff that I never should have allowed in my life, mainly because I hadn’t yet realized the extent of my personal power. I didn’t fully understand that I could design my own life and contribute to a kinder culture through my intentional choices.

Now I focus on steering my life where I want it to go, rather than just drifting along with the current because I didn’t feel that I could expect better. I no longer waste my time and energy on other people’s melodrama. The world is so full—so wonderfully full—of better options to discover! And for that, also, I am grateful.

Namaste,

Meg