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On Delivering Happiness and Grit

On Delivering Happiness and Grit

Photo of Mr. Hirsch and his dog from the WUSA 9 post
Photo of Mr. Hirsch and his dog from the WUSA 9 post

My skin is burnt from the sun.  My lips chapped, and my mouth dry from partial dehydration.  The bruises on my thighs don’t tell the real story of the pain I am feeling in my legs and feet.  I haven’t slept in over forty hours and dizziness is now setting in making my gait unstable and I stumble at times.  The strength that I relied on the last few days is now gone and I struggle to lift the most minor objects, even the fork that is now in my right hand.  The device on my wrist reminds me of the almost 90,000 steps I have taken in the last 48 hours or so.

What happened? You ask. Did you go through some kind of survival exercise?

Nope…nothing like that.

It was the church yard sale!

My daughter Hayley gave me the book Grit, the Power of Passion and Perseverance,  by Angela Duckworth for Father’s Day.  Though I haven’t finished it yet, Ms. Duckworth defines Grit as the combination of passion and perseverance.

My church’s annual yard sale is an example of grit.

Matthew 25:40: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Every year on this last weekend of June, a group of very passionate people, persevere through what was a grueling month of work, escalating in the days and hours leading up to and throughout the event itself; to raise money to support missions that help “the least of these brothers and sisters.”

Tony Hsieh, in his book Delivering Happiness, says that happiness is about four things:

Perceived Control

Perceived Progress

Connectedness (number of relationships and the depth of those relationships)

And, most important, being part of something bigger than yourself

I can tell you that the folks who I worked with this last month and especially these last few days have both Grit and Happiness.

 

I finally arrived home Saturday about 7 pm after being up since Friday morning at 6 am and sat down on my deck to eat the nice dinner that Savannah had made.  My neighbor came over to ask if we also had noticed the odor, the smell of a dead animal, evident from time to time in our yards.  Since I hadn’t been home in 36 hours I hadn’t really noticed it but Kim had as well.

Our yards back up to wooded area, and we have many animals that we see in out of the trees and brush fairly routinely.

A few minutes later my neighbor came back, this time visibly a little shaken and asked me to come with him,  he thought he found something suspicious in the woods behind his house.

 

Kenneth R. Hirsch, left a home on around 4:45 p.m. Tuesday in the 1400 block of Kingstream Drive around 4:45 p.m. His dog was with him. He was reported missing to authorities on Wednesday.

Police said Hirsch “may be experiencing emotional distress and be in possession of a firearm,” police said. They warned “he should not be approached.”

This was reported in the Washington Post on Friday.

 

On Saturday evening my neighbor and I found Mr. Hirsch and his dog.

Sadly, according to the police officer I spoke with, it was presumed that Mr. Hirsch took his own life and the life of his dog.

In August of 2014 after the suicide death of Robin Williams, I was reminded in my Happier, Healthier Me blog that not everyone was happy, not everyone was healthy.

Like Robin Williams, I am guessing that Mr. Hirsch didn’t have those four components of Happiness that Tony Hseih defines for us.

Unlike the physical pain I experienced this week in my quest to pursue happiness, Mr. Hirsch’s pain was different.  And at least for a moment he couldn’t control it.

And that’s all it took.

There are many around us who don’t have perceived control; who don’t feel like they are making progress; many that don’t have lots of strong relationships or friends; and aren’t part of something bigger than themselves.

They don’t have a passion for life anymore and the strength to persevere.

We need to help these brothers and sisters too.

 

 

 

The Great South Florida French Bread Incident

The Great South Florida French Bread Incident

french bread one

By definition, a French Bread is a yeast-raised bread distinguished by its thick, well-browned crust, made in long, slender, tapered loaves.

I am a huge French bread fan.

HUGE!

But let’s get to the story.

It was early April.  I don’t remember which day exactly; it’s all a blur now.

Kim and I were visiting my daughter and son in law in South Florida and spending some time with our newest grandson.  One afternoon, I was preparing dinner and needed to go to the grocery store.   It was a Publix, a grocery store chain prevalent in South Florida.  I picked up what I needed for the dinner I was planning, and then I found a French bread.  Not a perfect one I thought, but not bad either.

I placed my French bread in the seat of the shopping cart like I would have done if it was my infant grandson Christian; very carefully and safe and sound away from the other items.

So now having completed my shopping I went to the check out.  I put all my groceries on the belt saving my French bread for last.  Now safely behind the other groceries, I put the little divider out so that the customer behind me wouldn’t encroach on my bread.

The nice young lady scanned and bagged all of my groceries.

Then she got to my French bread.

I watched.

She picked it up from the middle as I would have wanted her to do, so the weight would be distributed evenly.

She scanned my bread.

Then, she very calmly grabbed it with two hands, one on each end, snapped it in half and shoved it in the bag with some other groceries.

I felt the blood draining from my skin as my face got pale.  I think my bottom lip began to quiver as I stared trying to make sense of what had just happened.

I was speechless.  I didn’t know what to do!

Then, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened, she calmly asked me to swipe my card, which momentarily jarred me out of my shock and I fumbled around to find my debit card, now just reacting to commands without thinking.

Shock gripped me…was this a South Florida thing I thought?

Should I just act cool like I knew that every check out person in South Florida snaps their customer’s French breads in half to be able to fit them in the bag?

I come from a part of Jersey where snapping someone’s French bread or Italian bread in half could have dire circumstances.

Still dazed and confused I took my receipt and my bags, including my broken baguette, and went back to my daughter’s home to tell them the story of the girl who folded up my French bread and put it in the bag.

 

I waited to share The Great South Florida French Bread Incident because I thought that one day I would understand; one day it would have some meaning, some moral to a story that would serve as a metaphor for one of life’s indignancies.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I knew the moral of the story already.

The moral of the story is… hey South Florida; don’t be snapping people’s French breads!

If I had bought a bouquet of long stem roses for my wife from the floral section would the stems have been snapped in half and the roses shoved in a bag?

What if I got one of those long family size packages of chicken thighs, would she have busted them up so they wouldn’t poke out the top?

I don’t think so!

Why then did she disrespect my French bread?  If I had wanted my bread in smaller pieces I would have bought the bag of dinner rolls instead!  I want my French bread as a long, slender, tapered loaf like the definition says!

Maybe there is a message here.  Maybe it is about respect.  Respecting those things that are important to others or that belong to others.

It’s like going out day after day to find that your neighbor’s dog has peed on the plastic bag that contains your Washington Post as it rests on the sidewalk (me).

Or coming home and finding teenagers you don’t even know sitting around your patio smoking cigarettes and helping themselves to your cooler (yup, my patio).

 

Yes, I think it is about respect.

Surely, that is the moral of The Great South Florida French Bread Incident!

And I also think that there might be times when we just need a reason to laugh little again.