Off The Beat

I never imagined that at this stage of life I’d be spending Sunday afternoon in a classroom in Philadelphia, singing We Are Young.

But learning to sing a capella with Penn’s undergrad group “Off The Beat” was just the latest of many surprises for the 32 of us who came to Penn monthly since last September from around the world to study what’s right with human beings. – the grand finale of our master of applied positive psychology (MAPP) classes.

Mostly, we were surprised by the passion of our fellow students, exemplified over and over, for making the world a better place. One traveled from China, another from Jerusalem and another from Scotland every month for the rare privilege of learning from Martin Seligman and other luminaries in the field how to bring out the best in individuals, organizations and institutions. Two others, from Germany and Singapore, pulled up stakes for the year and settled in near the Penn campus. One simply added Philadelphia to a regular itinerary that already included China and London.

In a class intentionally mixed to represent diverse cultures, ages and domains, we so marveled at our good luck to be MAPPsters and teared up, when the director assured us at the opening session that admissions hadn’t made a mistake. “You belong here,” he said, along with “Trust the process,” which hung in our heads during an intense year.

In a discipline that applauds the value and vulnerability of human relationships, we gradually peeled ourselves back like onions during campus on-sites. At home, we drank gallons of coffee to keep up with reading that in the end was stacked nearly as tall as we were and write papers till no more words could come. And in this final session of a humanities class (still more papers to come), we learned from an undergrad a capella group how to become a musical hive.

Although I have felt very old on a few morning after only a few hours sleep, the stimulation of a year with such impassioned positive thinkers makes We Are Young seem right at any age. And the refrain, I really don’t want to get out of my head:

“Let’s set the world on fire. We can burn brighter than the sun.”

It took a tiny high-pitched pulsing sound penetrating the bedroom at 2 a.m. last week to remind me how wrong I was.

“Hallelujah! Thank you for letting me know that the smoke detector battery has died!” I did not say. And stumbled upstairs for quieter digs behind a quickly slammed door. It was not until the next morning that I felt slight gratitude for knowing – this time – where the beep was coming from.

Usually, the possibilities are endless. “Shhhh! Does anyone else hear that?” is the first sign of a mystery beep. Then the competition begins, with various players darting upstairs and down in search of a very faint sound.

“Dryer?”

“Water detectors under the sink?”

“Try the smoke detector in the back upstairs bedroom.”

“But it’s coming from under the floor.”

Veterans of the chase know the likely suspect lives down the stairs in the back corner: The Basement Watchdog. All innocent, stationed by the sump pump, TBW usually sits quietly like a miniature mastiff, ready to rescue a failing pump and save the basement from drowning. Quietly, that is, until the flashing lights and tiny beep announces that – once again – the battery is low on water.

“No problem,” I said the first time this happened, and dug around for the instruction book, which contained elaborate directions for unscrewing a couple of screws I could not find and filling some cylinders with distilled water I did not have. All while wearing safety goggles to protect my eyes from corrosive materials. Corrosive materials?

“Problem,” I said. And called Frank the handyman – my best problem-solver next to Google.

“I’ll watch you,” I said, standing back at a safe distance, “And next time do it myself.”

Of course, this has not happened. Each encounter with TBW reminds me of my late mother’s wisdom about not climbing on ladders or doing other dangerous things after a certain age. And so the beeping continues with every out-of-reach battery replacement and TBW refill until Frank arrives.

It is at least comforting to know that I am not alone in complicating my life with beeps. Some jet-setters are paying big bucks to add more. According to the SkyMall magazine stuffed in “the seat pocket in front of you” on a recent flight, I can have (for $247.99) a beeping pillbox with flashing lights that reminds me of every dose. For $299, a GPS tracker will give me real-time updates every three seconds of where someone’s vehicle is. And for a sentimental journey, I can have a voice-activated R2D2 in my living room ($199.95) dancing and beeping the night away.

With so many beeps already, I’ll probably pass on the extra gadgets. But I might reconsider if SkyMall started offering its cozy “Thundershirt” ($39.95) in fashionable women’s styles. Right now, they’re advertising it only for dogs afraid of loud noises, but I think it could work for beepers and possibly even battery corrosion.

I’ll keep checking SkyMall for updates. If a Thunder Wrap Dress appears in this year’s bold flower-power colors, I’ll be first in line.

Copyright 2012 Pat Snyder

With all the Easter hoopla possibilities, she was most content to find 12 plastic eggs hidden rather obviously in the front shrubs and then settle herself down to open them.

The prize in each one was pretty simple: a single blackberry. And so was the process of getting them: twist, open, pop (in the mouth). She sat very quietly, working through her fruit loot, one by one, till all were gone.

The ritual ended a little more rowdily.

“Happy Birthday!” I heard her say, and turned around to find her throwing Easter grass like an exuberant flower girl with a basket of rose petals.

She found all the eggs. But I’ll be finding the grass for months to come. If I’m lucky, it will remind me that the simpler we keep it, the more fun

“It is not that difficult,” she will protest from her position on all fours on the living room floor as she magically arches her back like a cat. “It’s just a matter of practice.” And practice she does – whether it’s tai chi, healthful cooking, or the daily ingestion of a dizzying array of supplements.

Thanks to Sally, my bookshelves are lined with unused cleansing “happy tummy” recipe books from Marilyn and Harvey Diamond, homemade videos of exercises by her tai chi instructor and audiotapes promising better living through meditation. I call it the guilt shelf.

There have been attempts. I once tried making miso soup and stir-fried some tofu. I signed up for yoga. I tried the cat thing. But life always got in the way, and before long, I was back to combing through my salad for every last tortilla strip and candied walnut. In fact, the only thing that endured were the yoga pants. They turned out to be lightweight, comfortable and just perfect for coming in under my goal weight at Weight Watchers.

So it was with accustomed guilt that I received an e-mail from her the other day about exercise.

My eyes darted quickly to the bottom line. “Exercise and thrive,” it said.

“Here we go again,” I sighed.

This time, she was letting me know that scientists had discovered an exercise hormone. Called irisin, after the the Greek messenger Goddess Iris, it carried a message to body tissues to turn white fat into super calorie-burning brown fat and in a some smooth diabetes-defeating move, it even sensitized the body to glucose.

There were two non-surprises about all this: (1) the part I think Sally wanted me to pay attention to and (2) the part she knew I would. The first was that people who did ten weeks of rigorous exercise training had twice the amount of this irisin stuff. Ten weeks?! Give me back the cat exercises. But then there was hope. It seems there’s speculation that the same effect might come from several days a week doing ten one-minute sprints on a stationary bike with a minute of rest in between. The e-mail called the one-minute sprints “more efficient and effective” Maybe, I thought, in front of the TV.

But the second non-surprise brought even more hope. This is the part Sally knew would get my attention. Already, researchers are working on an irisin-like drug that would be – voila! – like an exercise pill. A company has been licensed to develop it. So one day soon, maybe exercise will be simple. We’ll get all the irisin and none of the sweat.

Of course, the e-mail continued, it would not be as good as going to the gym. Obviously. There’s no point in buying new gym clothes if you’re just taking a pill.

Meanwhile, I’ve put up a Google alert for irisin. When the pill comes out, I want to be the first to know.

And I have a feeling the messenger goddess will not be Aunt Sally.

Copyright 2012 Pat Snyder

“Hi, gammy!” said Taylor. I soon found out there was big news behind this phone debut: “Daddy made popsicle!”

The orange juice popsicle, poured in the morning, had reported been the focus of her attention all day long. Like the watched pot that would not boil, the popsicle would not freeze. For hours. she waited for the final reward. Finally, minutes before the call, it was time.

“Cold!” she reported. Brrrrr!”

I marvel at the patience of this two year old, and hope that in a world where we’ve come to expect instant, she will continue to be willing to wait and finally savor. I suspect the long-awaited treat will be the one she remembers, long after those store-bought “quiescentally frozen confections” have melted away.

I like to chalk up the brain freeze to superior analytical thinking but have a secret fear. Maybe I’m just a complicator. Someone who can take the stuff of everyday life, question it to death and transform it into a moral dilemma.

Take something simple. Dog is man’s best friend. True or false? Not true for me personally. I don’t have one. But maybe for dog owners, and possibly not even for them, depending on the dog and the day. And what does this say about other friendships, say with humans?

The real fun came when I started taking positive psychology classes and started taking batteries of these tests to unearth my real personality. Was I a positive or negative thinker? Satisfied with life? And what were my top five strengths and values? With just 240 online questions, all would be revealed.

“It won’t take more than 40 minutes,” the professor assured us.

But I did the math, and quickly figured out that I was not zipping along at 10 seconds per question.

For example, I never quit a task before it’s done. Was that very much like me? Like me? Neutral? Unlike me? Not at all like me?

Guiltily, I remembered the parts of the to-be-stuffed bear that have slept unfinished in a guest room closet for 22 years. “Not very much like me,” I confessed, and was glad, at least, that I’d never confessed this to my late mother, who would have been appalled.

Or I never dread getting up in the morning.

“There’s not a soul on earth who doesn’t dread getting up on some mornings,” I told my daughter, a psych major and defender of such tests. But then I began to worry because I have a secret suspicion that such people do exist. Not only do they not dread getting up. They jump into cold showers at 4:30 a.m., towel off and go for a run.

After debating whether hitting the snooze was the same as dreading, I decided that neutral – whatever that means – was probably the easiest answer. Same with I never get sidetracked when I work and I think through the consequences every time I act. Obviously not, or I would have started the blasted test a couple of days before. But still, I picked “neutral” because it would keep me from getting sidetracked by wondering about being sidetracked and suffering the consequences.

The real puzzler, though, had to do with being a phony. Was I willing to say I’d rather die than be one? Because that was the statement: I’d rather die than be phony. Really? Die? That seemed a little heavy. And yet, I really don’t like being phony. And if I answered “Very much like me,” wouldn’t that be phony? In fact, wouldn’t that be phony for anyone? So maybe it was a trick question, one of those thrown in to ferret out how honest you are. I put, not surprisingly, “neutral,” hit “Submit” and awaited the results, only to find that my Number One strength is Curiosity.

I can’t help but wonder why.

Copyright 2012 Pat Snyder

It sounded innocent enough.

“You’ll love it,” she said. “It’s a lot like Scrabble.”

I’m a Scrabble-lover from way back, so I couldn’t download it soon enough. After all, it’s free (money, not time) and before I laid eyes on it, I convinced myself it was “educational” and would probably make me eloquent.

Besides, Scrabble holds fond memories. Growing up, I remember my dad tossing aside work in favor of a hot Scrabble game. Some of our most spirited debates were over high-scoring words like “Unjar.” Without Scrabble, I would never have realized that anything capable of being jarred could also be unjarred. And I wouldn’t have wondered if the same principle applied to canning or dancing or even applauding. In a family that normally discussed the price of potatoes, Scrabble took us to a whole new level.

So it was with sentiment and passion that I downloaded Words with Friends, assumed the code name zyngawf19892 (which I couldn’t figure out how to change), and electronically planted WART, a measly seven-pointer, across the star in the middle of the board. I should have realized right away that if WART was the best I could do, WWF might be a humbling. But it didn’t take long to find out.

In the very first game, my daughter came up with the word OUTWHIRL for 72 points. In the old days, under the family rules, I could have said, “What? Outwhirl?” and jumped up to consult Funk & Wagnall’s or Merriam-Webster. If it was there, fair enough. If not, the burden would shift to her to explain exactly what an “outwhirl” is. Not with WWF. The game takes away the fun by either instantly accepting the word or declaring unconditionally that “outwhirl” is not a word. No arguments.

Right away, we’re bidding sayonara (a high-pointer, I bet) to the educational component. No need to look up the word. It either is one, or it isn’t. And no built-in advocacy training. Thanks to WWF, probably fewer and fewer English majors will succeed in law school. S’long (not a word) to eloquent briefs.

I, however, am doing my best to profit from the (considerable) time spent with WWF by looking up words such as “outwhirl” and finding out what they mean. FYI, it is possible to outwhirl someone when you whirl better than they do. It is only from WWF that I know that “cloot,” which won me 54 points, is one of the divisions of a cleft hoof – knowledge that one opponent points out will come in handy if I am ever a veterinarian in Scotland.

But mostly, I have learned that in two of three games, I have been considerably “outscrabbled,” a condition that WWF tells me is not a word but that serious players tell me I can overcome with much more practice.

Maybe. But with the new semester starting, it occurs to me that FLUNK is probably a word. And so reluctantly, I am turning it off.

Copyright 2012 Pat Snyder

Whatever your style, a useful exercise is to take inventory of your time, your stuff and your relationships.

Here are a few sample questions to get you started:

* What am I spending my time on? Does it still have value for me?
* What would I like to spend more time on? How can I do that?
* Is there stuff I no longer want or use? How and when will I dispose of it?
* Are there people I’d like to reconnect with? When will I do that?
* Are there relationships that no longer serve me? How can I change those relationships or let them go?
* Is there someone I need to forgive? Express gratitude to?

Finding the answers and acting can lighten and enrich your load in 2012.

I hadn’t planned to start the season with such an ambitious, time-consuming de-stresser, but the professor in a positive psychology class I’m taking thought it would be a great idea. More accurately, he required it – along with a pedometer and daily reports on our class blog. Since the unit was on the mind-body connection, I figured the expected reports were on the mood-altering properties of a good walk.

“Be sure to wear your pedometer,” he said gaily, which suggested we already owned them. I did not mention that the closest I’ve come to a pedometer was a couple of years ago when I placed one in my son’s Christmas stocking. Or that the closest he came to it was when he handed it over to his wife.

Since I refused to confess to pedometric ignorance, I set out without a roadmap to find one. It is not a simple task. There are cheap analog ones that simply count steps and more expensive digital ones with stopwatches that count not just steps but miles and calories, tell time and I think play music.

When the salesman started pointing to some that “counted every single step,” I got curious. “You mean some don’t count every step?” I asked.

“Well, “ he said, “the digital ones are better.” Better meant you could attach it to your shoe and get credit not only for walking but also pedaling a bike, tapping your foot and – ta-dah! – possibly driving? I quickly sprung for the “better” one and after two trips to the store for technical assistance was wracking up digital numbers with every step.

I’ll admit it put a positive spin on holiday confusion. Shopping in mega-malls was suddenly a plus, and I was thrilled when I couldn’t find close-in parking. Suddenly, I had an advantage over the younger students. Every time I misplaced my shoes, my glasses or could not remember why I walked into a room, I was sure to log another 2,000 steps.

Still, in addition to the more positive real one, I was mentally posting another daily report on the class blog. “What sort of sadist would assign this extra work during the holidays?” I whined. By the 9,000th step, it had morphed into a newspaper headline: “Student Collapses. Professor Indicted.”

In the end, like a child who threatens to run away but comes home before dark, I stopped with the fantasy notes and surrendered. I am proud to announce that on one momentous day, I wracked up 15,000 steps. That’s a lot even if it was in response to a challenge from my daughter’s boyfriend, who promised lunch and dessert.
But I will never match the joyous report from one of my classmates:

“15,000 steps today. I have no idea how this happened!”

My theory was it happened because he fell into a coma somewhere around 9K and experienced 6,000 involuntary twitches in his right foot. I’ve made a mental note to see if he has a digital pedometer.

Copyright 2011 Pat Snyder