Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Wired
By Lynne Gots, posted on October 12th, 2011.
Recently my smart phone crashed. Contact information gone. Calendar vanished. Text messaging history obliterated. While some of the data had been preserved on the SIM card, much of it couldn’t be transferred to the new phone because the charge port on the old one had broken. So I had to start from scratch, reprogramming my new Android and reconstructing from memory, as best I could, all the details holding my life together.
OMG! I panicked in a way I knew was entirely excessive but also sadly indicative of just how much we’ve all come to rely on technology to manage our daily existence.
Until then I hadn’t thought of myself, a so-called digital immigrant, as someone who’d become totally assimilated into the culture of 21st century communication. I don’t prefer texting to calling. I keep a paper calendar to back up my electronic one. I’d rather phone a restaurant to make a reservation than book it on Open Table. And I can’t completely rely on my phone’s GPS to get me to unfamiliar destinations, especially since it’s led me astray a few too many times late at night. Yet without my phone and all its capabilities, I felt completely unmoored. Rudderless.
I’m plenty old enough to remember life before cell phones. Before personal computers, even. The recent death of Steve Jobs generated slews of reflections on how much his contributions to technology have changed the way we live. So I’ve found myself musing about how different it used to be before we were so connected.
When I was in college, for instance, I spent an agonizing ten hours waiting for friends to meet me at a train station in Milan. I had no way of contacting them, and no way of knowing if they’d ever arrive. They might have gotten into an accident. They might have gotten arrested. They might have gotten lost. I paced, looked at the clock, and contemplated my options. Should I leave? Find a youth hostel? Unroll my sleeping bag on a bench in the station? As I was about to venture out into the night to look for a place to stay, they drove up. I don’t even remember why it had taken them so long to get there. All I can recall is the overwhelming relief and joy I felt at their arrival.
In the retelling, this incident sounds as quaintly old-fashioned as a buggy ride. Or the famous literary story arcs, no longer plausible, which unfolded from similarly crossed signals and miscommunications. Think of Romeo and Juliet. Had Friar Tuck been able to text Romeo about Juliet’s potion-induced coma instead of sending a messenger who failed to deliver the news in time, the young lovers could have been spared their tragic fate. And how about Candide, who might never have embarked on the harrowing journey to reunite with his beloved Cunégonde had he been able to stay in touch with her through Skype?
Nowadays, the wealth of information at our fingertips and options for instant communication leave far less to chance. There’s more certainty, to be sure. But we’ve also lost a little magic. That is, unless our phones die. Then, just imagine the dramatic possibilities.
Tags: uncertainty
Posted in General |
Waiting for Motivation
By Lynne Gots, posted on October 10th, 2011.
Whenever people tell me they can’t get started on a project because they’re waiting for motivation, I think of Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot. In this classic absurdist piece, two characters sit around anticipating the arrival of a guy named Godot. They don’t really know what he looks like and aren’t sure they’d recognize him if he showed up. But they wait for him anyway. They bide their time by telling stories, singing songs, napping, snacking on a carrot, swapping hats, speculating about the merits of hanging themselves from a nearby tree, and wondering if a passerby who stops to chat with them is Godot himself. Nothing happens. The play closes as it begins, with the two men in exactly the same place, thinking Godot will perhaps be coming tomorrow.
Waiting for motivation is a lot like waiting for Godot. We often wait and wait, yet motivation doesn’t come. Or maybe it does, but we don’t recognize it even if it’s standing right in front of us. We fill the hours with meaningless activities or ones meant to take our minds off the waiting—surfing the Internet, checking Facebook, texting friends, playing games online. We grow bored. Occasionally we despair. And still we wait, not stopping to think that perhaps it’s the waiting, and not motivation’s failure to arrive, that’s holding us back.
So the next time you find yourself stuck, unable to go anywhere until the elusive motivation gets there, think about these lines from the play:
“Tomorrow, when I wake up . . . What shall I say of today? That . . . I waited for Godot?”
Stop waiting. Start moving. And maybe you’ll run into motivation along the way. And even if you don’t, at least you’ll be some place different from where you are now.
Tags: motivation
Posted in Behavior Change, Motivation |
Dancing with the Dogs
By Lynne Gots, posted on October 5th, 2011.
Anyone who comes to see me for help with anxiety quickly learns The Cardinal Rule: don’t avoid the things that scare you. It’s human (and animal) nature to flee from danger. But avoidance only makes fear worse in the long run. That is, unless you find yourself in a dark alley with a knife-wielding thug on your heels, in which case—and I’m certain my professional liability insurance carrier would want me to make this perfectly clear—you should run like hell.
I wouldn’t feel right about pushing other people off the high dive, metaphorically speaking, unless I’d jumped myself. So I look for opportunities to get up close and personal with discomfort.
One activity really does the trick for me. And, as a bonus, it nudges my Australian Shepherd Freddie outside his comfort zone (which, admittedly, doesn’t take much). It’s called Canine Musical Freestyle, or doggie dancing.
Go ahead and laugh all you want. This is a legitimate sport. If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself. It’s amazing to watch, but also extremely silly — especially if you’re the one doing chorus line kicks alongside a dog. I decided to take a Freestyle class because I knew it would make me feel ridiculous.
Freddie and I had already tried one canine sport, Agility. Most Aussies are naturals at it. Whip-smart and agile, they navigate the timed obstacle course with ease. Not Freddie. Sure, he had no trouble learning how to dash through tunnels, prance across balance beams, and jump through hoops. But we spent most of the time huddled in a corner, trying to avoid the other dogs. After only the second lesson, Freddie mistook a miniature Schnauzer for an errant sheep and got us kicked out of class.
So with great trepidation, I signed us up for Freestyle. I was very nervous. I started sweating before I even walked in the door, knowing I’d have to keep Freddie calmly focused on me while we passed through a room full of hyped-up Border Collies and Aussies. Then there was the matter of the dancing itself. I’m spatially-challenged; I can barely tell my left foot from my right. Embarrassment was clearly in the cards.
But who knew? Freddie turned out to be a dancing fool. His enthusiasm made me forget my awkwardness. It even helped him ignore all the barking and whirling around him—except once, when he chased down a Chihuahua who was performing an intricate balancing act on his owner while she did a series of yoga poses. I suspect that Freddie, who has a highly evolved sense of right and wrong, viewed it as unseemly canine behavior and was taking it upon himself to put a stop to it.
I spent weeks searching for the perfect music, finally settling on Frank Sinatra’s, “I Won’t Dance”—a classy standard that was just the right tempo for the choreography I’d been obsessively working out in my head. I imagined Freddie looking suave in a bow tie if we ever actually performed in competition (and if I could ever actually get him to wear one). When it came time to present our routine for the class, Freddie debonairly grasped an umbrella in his paws, kicked up his legs in perfect step with mine, glided sideways across the floor with me while I tried not to trip over my own feet, pirouetted on his hind legs, and finished with an elegant bow.
Too bad nobody could see us. After the Chihauhua incident (which thankfully didn’t phase our wonderful teacher Carolynn, herself the owner of six Aussies), I decided to play it safe and work behind a screen to obscure the other dogs from Freddie’s sight line.
But by the beginning of the second session, we were able to emerge from behind our barrier. Freddie can watch quietly now, relaxing by my side while Carolynn’s retired champion Freestyler, Rafe, shows us his moves. We’ve even demonstrated a few of our own.
Facing our fears made Freddie and me much more confident. And so did having that show-off Chihauhua drop out of class.
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Tags: anxiety, desensitization
Posted in Behavior Change, Dogs, Techniques |
