Finding Your Credo

It’s okay to be milquetoast if you want to be

When my daughter was little, she was at a preschool and another girl attacked her, knocking her down, roaring like a lion, saying she was going to eat her up. My daughter’s dress was ripped. When I picked her up, the teachers said, “Don’t worry, we talked to the other girl about why she was feeling aggressive.”

“Yes,” I said, “but did any of you talk to my little girl?”

They hadn’t. Not really.

And my daughter never returned to that preschool.

That other girl? She’s all grown up now and still not a nice human being.

The little cutie herself

It’s lovely to reach out with empathy toward people who hurt others. But it’s equally, if not more important, to reach out to the people who are right there, in that moment, feeling hurt.

That’s something I believe. It’s okay if you don’t believe it, too.

And that’s always been part of what I believe. I believe that we take care of the person who has been hurt first so that they know they didn’t deserve it and so that they know that they deserve care. And then we also take care of the person who did the hurting.

This has a point, I promise.

photo by me

I went to cover a protest in Northeast Harbor this weekend. The protestors were chill. The three guys working security were chill. Protestors greeted each other with hugs. They called out to my very tall, very white, very walks-like-a-cop husband who was taking pictures, asking who he was. He was taking photos. So was I. But nobody asked me who I was, which was kind of interesting.

Anyway, Northeast Harbor is a place where some incredibly wealthy people live or have lived. It’s a town on MDI near my town of Bar Harbor.

The powerful and the privileged are very much alive in Northeast Harbor. But the thing is that the powerful and the privileged are still just humans. Some of them do things that get protested like Leonard Leo. Some of them don’t.

But what I noticed was how much the protestors believed in what they were doing. They were adamant in what their hearts and brains felt was right. There’s a woman in our town, Annlinn Kruger, she’s the same way. She 100 percent believes that consistently chalking GOOGLE LEONARD LEO will inform more people about Leonard Leo. And she’s truly consistent. And she’s persistent. And even if you don’t agree with her or the protestors who have been going to Leo’s house since 2019 or so, you have to think, “Wow. That’s commitment.”

photo by me

They remind me of the Stoics like Cato and Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius; some were born wealthy and some not so much. Some are men. Some are women. Some are agender. But they are all there. Committed.

The Daily Stoic had an email out today where it wrote,

“Yet advantaged or disadvantaged, all the Stoics possessed a certain power, a certain freedom by way of their philosophy. The Stoics, rich and poor alike, were equally independent and defiant. They were in command of themselves, they knew what was good and what wasn’t, they knew what was true and what wasn’t and no one–through force or temptation–could make them think otherwise.

“’If you can read in at least one language, then you have this–the tool to educate yourself,’ the great LeVar Burton said before receiving a lifetime achievement Emmy Award last year. ‘No one can hold sway over your mind, your imagination, your dreams if you can read.’ Or as Epictetus said a couple centuries earlier, ‘the educated are free.’”

“A strong mind, a mind that knows how to learn, that knows how to get to the core of things? This mind is stronger than tyrants, than slave owners, than serpent-tongued manipulators. They might be able to throw you in jail or bombard you with disinformation, but they can’t actually get to what matters within you.”

What you believe in is connected to how well you believe in yourself. Knowledge about the world is power, right? But also knowledge of your self is power, too.

What are the maxims and rules that help you get through the day? Do you think about them when you make decisions? Are they engrained in you?

Annlinn Kruger chalking the street. Photo by me

Back in 2013, Paul Hudson wrote for Elite Daily,

“It is not possible to know yourself if you do not know what you believe in. If you do not believe in anything then why are you living? What purpose do you have? Why bother getting up in the morning? If you don’t have maxims that you hold true, that you believe are either the way the world works or the way the world ought to work, then whatever actions you take have no purpose, no direction.

“You’re living a life carved with circular paths — a life that that has no end in sight, only random actions leading in all directions. Our beliefs make us who we are. If you are looking for yourself or looking to recreate yourself, start with your beliefs.”

When I was in college, one of my philosophy professors had us write our own personal credos. I may have been the only person who did the assignment, but I have a clear memory of sitting on the grass outside my four-story brick dorm and writing out all the things I really believed in my little composition notebook. I was too poor for a computer.

I was super into it.

I believe in trees in fog by the ocean. Photo by me


So, how do you do that? How do you make your own credo?

The Argonaut School has a podcast and post about it. It suggests three starting questions.

“What kind of person do you want to be? How do you hope others will see you?

What do you want to stand for?”


Another way to go after your own is here. But I think it’s okay to just freewheel it. Write what matters to you. Write who you want to be.

It can help. A couple of weeks ago, someone in our town (most likely one of the protesters and/or her son) wrote a satirical newspaper where they said my hyper-local news blog was milquetoast. I know! Fancy word, right? And I wasn’t offended. I laughed. Why? Well, it was somewhat clever, I guess. I mean, it was a big, fancy word.

But mostly I didn’t care because all my life people have called me timid because I am so focused on being fair and understanding all the facts and ideas from multiple perspectives.

All my life, people have said that I was meek because I try so hard to be as unbiased and kind as I can be (sometimes I fail). That’s just who I want to be. Maybe at some magical day in the future it won’t be who I want to be, but it is who I want to be right now.

And it’s also why I’m not 100 percent onboard with the Argonaut School’s way of approaching your credo. I don’t think what matters is how other people see me. I think what matters is how I see me.

Maybe the questions should be:

How do you see yourself? Are you the person you want to be? What do you stand for? What do you not stand for?

The things we do to other people, the ways we react, can shape us and them. When those teachers took care of the violent girl instead of my daughter, my daughter learned that you can’t depend on authority figures—even the super kind ones—to take care of you when you’re hurt. She ended up being a leader, a captain in the military, an artist, a writer, a friend, an adventurer, a thinker, someone who helps people, but also someone who knows she herself has a whole lot of worth.

us

I had to work super hard to make sure that she always knew that she was valued and deserved to be cared for. She did that work, too. Now, that’s something is ingrained in her. But it could have gone a really different way.

It’s something to think about at least, right? I hope you have fun thinking about it!


So, I blog over on LIVING HAPPY and WRITE BETTER NOW every Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. I don’t always share those posts over here, so if you’re into it, you can come subscribe over there and hang out. No pressure though!

Don’t Let Your Farts or Your Ego Get In Your Way

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Don't Let Your Farts or Your Ego Get In Your Way
/

This brilliant podcast–wink, wink–we talk about how both farts and your own ego can threaten to take over your life if you don’t take some control over their eruptions.

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

Be willing to flop in the grass. It all isn’t about being better. Sometimes it’s just about being alive and farting when you need to.

LINKS TO LEARN MORE


https://apnews.com/hub/oddities

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ambigamy/201911/12-tips-getting-real-about-your-ego

dailystoic or for its emails

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It’s pretty awesome.

AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.

We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.

Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!

I’ve Been Talking To People I’m Scared of and It’s Turning Out Okay

injustice often came from not taking care of the earth and then not taking care of each other.

This year, I’ve been talking to a lot of people that I used to be a little afraid of.

And it’s been?

Lovely.

It’s actually been lovely.

People that I was intimidated by, I now message on Facebook.

People that I would stress about seeing because they had no problem telling me uncomfortable truths? We talk on the phone.

People that were so beautiful and confident that I would sort of gawp at and run the other way? We smile and talk now. We make eye contact during meetings when other people are being dorks.

And this? It’s kind of a beautiful thing and a lucky thing. It’s all just because I stopped being a wimp and started just going into everything I’m afraid of with the goal of being nice no matter what.

Tomorrow is the tenth year anniversary of Richie Havens’ death. This man was a talent, an enhancing talent, but also someone who spent a lot of his life making the kind of music that preached love and kindness for each other and the environment.

Next week it will be the tenth anniversary of my little hobbit dad’s death. He was no Richie Havens, but he, too, dedicated so much of his time in love and kindness for other people, for the environment, breaking into song or whistling because the music of the world meant a lot to him and was a part of him.

And both of them seemed as if they could be skeptics; they were comfortable and familiar with unease.

And I think both of them believed (at least at some point in their lives) that injustice often came from not taking care of the earth and then not taking care of each other.

Today, I decided (again) that I need to rededicate myself to humanhood – to the hope that I can find a way to see everyone as part of a great, big human system that we are all in together.

There is magic in the earth. But it has to be tended to.

There is magic in humanity. But it has to be tended to, too.

I am tired of enemies. I am tired of thinking in a way that makes other people enemies or the earth, an enemy. I want a world that doesn’t have that, yet I still think that way sometimes. Recently, someone who has some issues and has been kind of mean to me, asked me, “How can you still be nice to me? I don’t understand how you can still be nice.”

It’s the only way I want to be. And, I TOTALLY fail at it sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I am going to stop trying. I want a world of nice, or magic, or tending to, a world where we celebrate each other being brave even when the result is sort of a mess (like my sketch below).

I can’t control anyone else, but I can at least partially control myself, so I’m going to try.

I’ll call it the Nice Experiment. It’s starting now. Fingers crossed that I’ll do okay with it. Fingers double crossed that people like Havens and my dad are still here, paying homage, creating music with words and thoughts and guitar riffs and hobbit voices (my dad, not Havens) that matter.

May be art

You can buy prints of some of my art if you’re into that.

And there’s more of this sort of content on Living Happy. It’s a Substack.

Crawling Through The White House Fence And Let’s Get Stoic

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Crawling Through The White House Fence And Let's Get Stoic
/

This podcast episode, we talk about a trespasser and security threat: a naughty toddler.

We also delve a bit into one of the ways stoicism helps you be more resilient and how this helps for writers, too. YES! Even writers!

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

Walk with purpose, humans.

xo

Sparty

LINKS

https://apnews.com/article/white-house-toddler-fence-secret-service-6ece5fc94204dbc3001457403269c28e

https://dailystoic.com/

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It’s pretty awesome.

AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.

We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.

Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!

It not just about thinking positive; it’s about doing positive.

We’ve all heard that if we just think positively everything will be better.

We have journals and lists that we create every night or morning of how we’re blessed.

Then there’s the mantra, “Change your thoughts, change your life.”

And sometimes when I see these things I get a little ragey because it isn’t always that easy. It’s hard to always think positively when your dog has just died or you’re in a war zone or your being hurt.

We’re all allowed to be a little ragey sometimes or sad or gleeful or even covetous. That’s because we’re human, but it’s also because of something even more important that we all need to remember.

WE ARE NOT OUR THOUGHTS.

We can think, “I am Jesus” all day long but that doesn’t make us Jesus. We can think, “I am Beyonce” or “I am the president.” But it doesn’t make us so.

What makes us who we are?

The things we do.

I have a friend who does one act of kindness after another, who cares passionately about the people she loves. But people can annoy her sometimes. Injustices REALLY annoy her.

And after she has a judgement-free rant, she’ll say, “I’m so awful. I know! I know!”

But that’s the thing.

She’s not awful. She’s amazing. She’s one of the best people I know. And that’s because who she is isn’t just about her thoughts. Who she is stems from her actions, her choices, her decisions.

When she needs to persist or overcome, she doesn’t give in to her thoughts of doubt, her insecurities, or even her anger. She acts. She makes a difference.

How cool is that?

Yes, it’s important and super healthy to have a positive outlook. But it’s not always possible, and when you don’t achieve that? It doesn’t make you bad. If you think you’re bad, then you’re just going to end up in another negative thought spiral.

You’re too awesome for that.

And you can’t sit around waiting to be happy, hoping that this will be the day where you aren’t in pain, or someone isn’t a troll, or the basement doesn’t flood. You have to make the choice to be happy and take the actions that help you feel that if that’s what you want to feel.

You can think about changing all the time, but actual change come from doing the work, the actions, making the choices and going for it.

You can do that.

So, how do you do that?

DO THINGS

Acting/doing/participating in something takes you away from negative thoughts and thrusts you into the action, gives you focus. People in Asia and Europe have talked about the flow state for a long time. People in sports tend to call it being in the zone.

But it’s a place, and damn it’s beautiful.

To get there though, you have to do the action. That might be running, writing, painting, climbing, figuring out a theorem, creating a blog post, but it happens because you are doing an action. Do the things.

PUT YOUR THOUGHTS IN THEIR PLACE

Really. This isn’t new either, but it works. When you feel that negative thought spiral coming on, call it out. Say, “Yo. Negative thought. Just because I forgot to close the bedroom door before we made the sex and forgot my avo and Aunt Rose Marie were coming over does not mean ‘I am so stupid.’ It just means I was so in the moment that I forgot to close the door.”

You’ve got to try to see those negative thoughts for the bullies they are and sometimes all they need to chill out is just to be noticed.

I have wicked social anxiety. It’s like a weird kind of stage fright. And the only way for me to battle it is to just act right through it. So I get in the car and drive to the party and tell my negative thoughts that nothing horrifying will happen and my actions won’t make people go to jail. I go to the board meeting. I do the live podcast. I buckle up and stare down the negative thoughts and once I’m doing the actions? It helps tamp down the anxiety. But if I hesitate? That fear builds up and up, gaining so much power that it’s a vicious battle to tamp it back down.

And I love people. I love the joy of public speaking. I love moving people and inspiring them in person, right? So, it’s almost like my fright is excitement gone terribly wrong. It’s almost like a part of me thinks, “Who am I to get to do this? To be this happy? To have people listen to me?”

For a kid with a speech defect (and now an adult with one), that’s a pretty amazing thing. Middle-school Carrie would have never imagined it.

Pay Attention To The World Like A Tourist or a Poet Would

I know! I know! Poets and tourists don’t seem to go together, but they both search for experiences and explore their worlds.

A Roman emperior, Marcus Aurelius, would detail the world like the best of writers or artists. Ordinary things became extraordinary under his pen.

Noticing things is an action. Seeing things is a gift. Empathy and understanding can be byproducts of observation. Be present. Don’t overlook the ordinary. You’ve got this.

BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!

Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.

Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.

LET’S HANG OUT!

HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?

MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?

Email us at carriejonesbooks@gmail.com


HELP US AND DO AN AWESOME GOOD DEED

Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness on the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE podcast and our new LOVING THE STRANGE podcast.

We’re sorry we laugh so much… sort of. 


Please share it and subscribe if you can. Please rate and like us if you are feeling kind, because it matters somehow. There’s a new episode every Tuesday!

Thanks so much for being one of the 263,000 downloads if you’ve given us a listen!

One of our newest LOVING THE STRANGE podcasts is about the strange and adorably weird things people say?

And one of our newest DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE episode is about fear setting and how being swallowed by a whale is bad ass.


And Carrie has new books out! Yay!

You can order now! It’s an adult mystery/thriller that takes place in Bar Harbor, Maine. Read an excerpt here!

best thrillers The People Who Kill
The people who kill

It’s my book! It came out June 1! Boo-yah! Another one comes out July 1.

And that one is called  THOSE WHO SURVIVED, which is the first book in the the DUDE GOODFEATHER series.  I hope you’ll read it, like it, and buy it!

The Dude Goodfeather Series - YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones
The Dude Goodfeather Series – YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones

TO TELL US YOUR BRAVE STORY JUST EMAIL BELOW.

 

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