I Am Happier To Know You

We are facing a heartbreaking decision: whether or not to euthanize our horse Silencio.

The love we have for each of our animals does not exist in every culture or heart. This makes it difficult for everyone to understand the depth of our grief. Our ducks, cats, horses, even the deer that depend on our land for protection and food, are a part of our extended family. We would not have it any other way. They make us laugh and teach us about life from their perspective.

The situation with Silencio is forcing us to face our own mortality and that of every human being and animal we love. It is a reminder to live life in gratitude for every blessed second we share.

Thank you Silencio.

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Learning to love all living things is a basic Universal law. Every religion is founded on this belief, yet as I wrote in “I Am Happier to Know You,” many of the members and leaders of religious communities worldwide have forgotten to practice what their faith has taught for centuries: Do onto others as you would have them do unto you.

I saw it while living in Egypt and India and Mexico, and now in our new community in the United States. If the foundation of our religious beliefs is identical and we worship the same God, why do we find it so easy to demonize, even kill someone else simply because they worship God differently than we do? Throughout history, this ancient question has led to wars and massacre. As “advanced” as we are today our belief that our way is the only way to connect to God has placed our survival at risk. We can all die together, or we can choose to live together.

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Before leaving the United States for Egypt in 2001, I had always lived in or on the perimeter of a major city. When my children were very small, my friends were mostly limited to neighborhood stay at home moms. Until I became involved in community and political volunteer work, I often felt brain dead from the lack of intellectual stimulation. These activities, and later fulltime work, quickly expanded my community of friends from many different occupations and lifestyles. Outside my immediate neighborhood, it was easy to find people with similar interests and to fit in.

I have found that rural residents are far less open to newcomers simply because they are not family. This is as true in New England as it is in Texas. At the local farmer’s co-op, I was taken aback by a comment made by a young man whose family has lived in the area for generations.

We had talked to him about clearing some land with his bulldozer before a neighbor told us about a mulching system that, unlike a bulldozer, does not destroy the roots of the large trees we wanted to save. When he called to schedule the work, Chuck had to tell him that we had changed our minds. When I saw him at the co-op, he did not seem upset. His only comment was “I was really worried that I called too early for people like you.”

“Excuse me,” I replied. “What is a ‘people like you’?”

He stammered for a moment and said, “You know, city folk.”

I laughed in response.

“Why did you move here anyway?” he asked with obvious curiosity.

“We came here to show ‘people like you’ that liberals are as kind and as good a neighbor and friend as you are,” I replied tartly. He laughed.

He had hit a nerve. I adamantly dislike being boxed up as a one-dimensional human being. Just like him, I am multidimensional.

What he did not know is that I have made a conscious decision to become an active member of our community. There are liberal areas a little more than an hour away where I would find it easier to “fit in” but I do not live there. I live here.

I wrote “I Am Happier to Know You” because I wanted to share my discovery that despite our cultural and religious differences, we are all the same. I believe that learning about each other and then honoring and respecting our differences is the key to world peace.

So. I am still walking my talk, but now within my own culture. I have retained my sense of humor and understanding that when we understand and respect our differences we can then build upon our similarities.

Copyright 2010 by Jeanne M. Eck. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint or to quote extensively from this article, please contact the author at iamhappiertoknowyou.com

In the United States “Freedom of Speech” is a sacred tenant of our constitution. It guarantees the right to speak one’s mind publicly or privately without fear of reprisal. As someone who has had the opportunity to observe my culture from beyond our shores, I can only imagine how horrified our founding fathers would be to witness how Freedom of Speech is interpreted and abused today.

From my viewpoint, the crafters and signers of our constitution included this amazing right to insure that public dissent would serve as a balance to maintain an open, honest, honorable government of elected officials.

The ramifications of 9/11 have been significant and to me, terrifying. Elected officials bought into the fear by agreeing, based on fear and misinformation, to invade Iraq. “Terror risks” were posted on nightly news shows to keep Americans in fear mode and to make it uncomfortable for anyone to dissent. Suddenly it became Un-American to speak out about swiftly crafted laws like the Patriot Act that crushed major parts of our heritage. Guantanamo Bay and the reinterpretation of, The Geneva Convention and our constitution allowed the government to spy on millions of Americans whose only “crime” was to speak from their hearts and values.

With the impact of the recession and the election of the first African American President (an event I cherish with pride), those who used 9/11 to create a war of hate against all Muslims extended their use of negative labels to accuse the current administration and “liberals” of trying to turn our democracy into a socialist one.  It has become common for political figures, ultraconservative groups and lobbyists to, at a minimum, misrepresent facts to scare our citizens into believing that never again will they have the opportunity to live the American dream of peace and prosperity. Elected officials are more terrified of labels and losing the next election than they are of doing what is best for all Americans. Far too many have forgotten that they were elected to serve rather than to use politics to maim and discredit even the purest of intentions. While I believe that dissent is always healthy, it comes with the responsibility to speak with truth and honor.

At the end of the day, we all want to be respected and validated, to be loved for all of who we are. America overflows with wonderful, kind, gentle people. The problem is that we have lost our way, at least for now. Once we begin to see that differences of opinion are secondary to seeing the beauty of humanity within each of us, we can agree to disagree and return to all of whom we truly are by remembering that which made the United States all of what it is.

One of our cultural norms in the United States is the propensity to hug those we love, are fond of, happy to see, or want to say a special thank you to. Of course, other cultures do this as well, but not to the same extent as American’s.

In business or social situations, we will shake hands with those we have just met or do not really know. The grasp of another’s hand in a handshake, whether done by a man or woman, is supposed to be firm, not machismo crushing or limp like a dead fish.  We do not shake hands and double or single kiss at the same time unless we’re aware that the person we are greeting hails from a culture that requires it.

Because some Americans are homophobic, straight men do not hold hands or kiss each other on the cheek, but it is okay to do a quick backslap and a very brief hug with a close friend or family member.

Hugs are short-lived or extended depending on the relationship with the other person. After becoming used to the etiquette at a church I attended when I lived in Washington, D.C., I got in the habit of doing full bear hugs with my male friends. This means that my breasts touched their chest. I had not even considered this might be inappropriate outside the church setting until an Australian friend demanded that I stop hugging her husband in this way. She thought I was hitting on him. I was not, but now I am more careful with both men and women. However,  this kind of hug, the one where you hold your chest a few inches away and lean forward with your ass facing upward, or just with bent arms so you cannot actually touch, to me, feels insincere. If I am truly happy to see someone, what I still consider a “real” hug is how I choose to express it.

In Egypt, it was okay to hug or double kiss all my friends and acquaintances. In India, it depended on how well I knew someone, but the double kiss was the normal greeting in social situations.  If a man was my friend, we also hugged, but if I just met him, we shook hands. In Mexico, I did not hug men. I shook their hand, but a polite greeting to a woman I had never met consisted of a single kiss to her right cheek followed by a brief hug. From my cultural perspective, this was over the top. I do not feel comfortable or sincere kissing people I do not know.  I also learned that upon arriving at an event, one is supposed to greet everyone in the room.  When leaving, you are supposed to do the reverse. I could never get myself to do this with any semblance of enthusiasm.  In my culture, this is known as “working the room.” It is practiced by those who are running for political office or trying to sell you something.

Europeans also have their own rules. It just depends on their country or culture of origin.   In some, a handshake is as close as you can get, in others, a double kiss is appropriate.  When I lived in Cairo, I greeted a British acquaintance with a hug because I was happy to see her. She was initially quite taken aback, but then kindly responded by saying “Oh. Of course you’re an American.” How lovely that she understood my cultural norm and accepted that I was not being cheeky.

If an American hugs you, take it as a compliment.  If they say that they are happy to see you, they probably are!

One of the most important facets of living in a foreign country is to respect and stay open to understanding the culture that surrounds you. It is equally important to give yourself permission to decline to participate in cultural practices that make you uncomfortable or may, when you return to your own culture, put you at physical or cultural risk.

For example, when I lived in Mumbai, India I had to decide that the cultural norm of not giving money or produce to aggressive beggars was one I shouldn’t break because it attracted more beggars to the area and made the lives of shopkeepers more difficult. This was a thorny decision for me to make because I believe that human being to human being, it is everyone’s responsibility to feed those who are hungry even if the chances are high that they are professional beggars who work for the local mafia. So, to compensate, I worked hard with a local expatriate club to raise money to feed and train the poor.

In India, it is impolite to yell or to push a stranger, but beggars often became physically aggressive with foreigners (something they would never do to an Indian). When I was touched or grabbed, not only did I physically shake the aggressor off, I also yelled bloody murder. Why? Because in my culture, and in most parts of the world, if a stranger grabs hold of you, you are in physical danger and must stop the assault before it becomes more aggressive.

Some Indians jump ahead in line or interrupt a transaction in progress so they can be waited on first.  It is common for a merchant to try and fill several orders at once. I quickly learned to say as appropriate, “Please finish with me first,” or “Please wait your turn.” I don’t know if it was rude to stand my ground, but it felt good when I did and the errant customer usually backed off very quickly.

In Egypt, when interacting with men I didn’t know, I had to learn to be less polite and friendly than my cultural norms dictate. This is because the assumption is often made that as a foreigner and a non Muslim, foreign woman are more sexually available.  Because I’m not Muslim, I did not wear a headscarf, but I dressed appropriately for the culture by wearing pants or long skirts and dresses but, as is the cultural norm, on hot days I did not wear long-sleeve tops because they were too hot and my menopausal body couldn’t take it.

At social events in Mexico, one is supposed to greet and say goodbye to every guest with a kiss and or touch of the arm. Although I’ve learned to “almost” make the complete rounds, to kiss people I don’t know makes me feel like a phony and conflicts with my cultural belief that if one “works the room” it is because they are campaigning for elective office or trying to sell something. Conversely, as an American I’m a natural hugger and toucher with those I’m fond of and happy to see which can make some Europeans very uncomfortable.

It is always important to be respectful of your host countries culture. As the world becomes more global, it is equally important for those from a host culture to understand that we all have been raised with cultural norms and taboos we’re not comfortable compromising and to never jump to the conclusion that someone else is rude because their ways are different. After all, they may find themselves being judged just as harshly by those who haven’t taken the time to learn about and to respect their customs and they may miss out on the opportunity for a wonderful friendship.

Copyright 2009 by Jeanne M. Eck. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint or to quote extensively from this article, please contact the author at iamhappiertoknowyou.com

In the wake of the devastating impact of the global recession, the beauty of humankind has begun to show its light and to turn away from “me” to “us.”

For many, hope for humanity began with the international appearance of Susan Boyle who mirrored back our propensity to judge based on superficialities. At the same time, her courage, spunk and talent opened our hearts to not only the possibility of her achieving great success, but hope that we can do the same.  It doesn’t matter that she placed second or that she had a temporary meltdown from the stress of being transported from a quiet village life to international stardom. Who wouldn’t?

Around the world individuals have risen above the negativity of today’s world to use their ingenuity to clothe, feed and house those who have found themselves joining the bottom rung of life’s ladder.

The recession has forced us to see our value as human beings rather than consumers.  We’re finally beginning to remember what it means to love and to give without condition, to stop wasting the wonderful resources of the world and to return to a time when face-to-face communication is more precious than clever, inane forms of instant contact that separates us from each other.

People are planting vegetable gardens to feed not only their own families, but those of their neighbors. Closets are being cleaned out to clothe the less fortunate and donated cars are being refurbished so that single mothers don’t have to rely on public transportation to get to work or to respond to a family emergency.

This is the world I was raised in and I’m thrilled to see its return.  Hooray for us!

Copyright 2009 by Jeanne M. Eck. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint or to quote extensively from this article, please contact the author at iamhappiertoknowyou.com

Since the bottom dropped out of the financial security my husband and I worked our whole lives to achieve, I have had to go deep inside to look at a lot of stuff I haven’t wanted to see. Compassion toward everyone has been a biggie.

Since 2000 I’ve been saying privately that the U.S. economy was heading for deep do-do. To me, the first warning sign was the low-yield interest rates for savings that Greenspan kept adjusting downward. I’m not an economist. I can’t count that high. Neither am I clever enough to fudge figures until they agree with my assessment.

Of course, with the exception of a friend who was an economist, everyone thought I was nuts. Then I watched as home prices and rents went through the roof, not just in the U.S. but everywhere I’ve lived in the world. I also watched everyone around me buying whatever they wanted simply because they wanted it therefore talked themselves into needing it.

As the national debt soared, I began to quietly ask “If our government is spending more than it’s raking in, and consumers are doing the same, how can the bottom not drop out of the economy?” It seemed pretty clear to me that everyone had to stop living beyond their means, pay off their debt and look at why things are so important to them.

What I didn’t factor in is the other side of the mess: there are people around the world who will do anything to take what isn’t theirs. They’re the ones, like our landlord in Mumbai who made it his trademark to not pay the poorest of the poor for months of work. I had compassion lapses for them until they began to pretend to fix things and to steal from me to make up for not being paid when they did do good work.

I have had trouble feeling compassion for the idiots who bought properties they couldn’t afford and didn’t read the fine print on their loan documents. Ignorance is not a viable defense for greed fostered by the stupidity of thinking about what we want, rather than what we can afford.

The actions of the Madoff’s of the world is beyond comprehension, but a level of responsibility belongs to their clients who were making returns on their investments they knew were beyond economic reality.

So maybe it all comes down to greed and a worldwide sense of entitlement to grab the sticky brass ring, no matter what the consequences to our spirits and ethics.

Maybe this whole mess is about being faced with the need to look ourselves in the mirrors and to see how we have contributed to it either as passive or proactive participants. It all boils down to accepting responsibility for everything we create and for failing to care as much about each other and doing the right thing as we do about “things.”

Our world is a place where those who are rich or comfortable look at those of a different caste, class, race, or nationality as being obviously undeserving of what they have achieved. Worldwide, the middle and upper classes are suffering terribly. Their idea of what their life would be has begun to be replaced with “what is.” And the poorest of the poor, they’re not even surviving and even fewer care if they do.

I’m working on expanding my compassion quotient to include the thieves, the stupid and the greedy. We’re human beings and the most important message the world may have ever received from this mess is that we all make mistakes, we all make choices and we can change if we want to. Perhaps the place to begin is to care about and help each other.

Challenges are always opportunities. We’ve got them and the best opportunities may be found outside ourselves within our own communities.

If we step outside our personal pity parties and “me first” mentalities, there are a million ways we can help someone less fortunate than we are financially or morally. Maybe it begins with compassion.

Copyright 2009 by Jeanne M. Eck. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint or to quote extensively from this article, please contact the author at iamhappiertoknowyou.com

It’s not that individual Indians aren’t kind, generous and wonderful friends, they are. It’s that the society as a whole is oblivious to the horrific ramifications of century-old practices of karma, the caste system and the reality that the depth of skin color identifies others as inferior or superior. On some level, it’s the same story worldwide practiced with different cultural twists.

While we were horrified by the Mumbai bombings, we weren’t surprised. Having lived there for two years, we watched the continued escalation of violence by Hindu fundamentalists against Muslims.

India touts interreligious respect as a national way of life, just as they do the Madison Avenue hype that India is the IT center of the world when it isn’t.

India is a country of beauty and indescribable horrors. It suffers from a deteriorated infrastructure, the highest level of infant and maternal mortality, the murder or abortion of female babies because families of daughters are expected to kneel to the whims of the grooms’ families by paying outrageous dowries or risk having their daughters burned alive, malnutrition, and horrendous graft and corruption.

The long, dehumanizing occupation by Great Britain left them so scared that rather than collectively being the kind gentle people they are individually, a false pride defined as  power, wealth  and security (acquired at any cost, including murder) boils not beneath, but steams into the culture.

Rather than projecting responsibility for the siege of Mumbai on Pakistan, India needs to stop pointing fingers and fists and look within to heal what could be healed if love, rather than hate takes a backseat.

Copyright 2009 by Jeanne M. Eck. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint or to quote extensively from this article, please contact the author at iamhappiertoknowyou.com

In the past, I’ve written about how our fear of loss and safety sabotages our lives by bringing to our doorsteps exactly what we fear most and how every unkind, compassionless action is merely an extension of a fear we carry as individuals or as a group.

As the New Year beckons with worldwide economic, ecological and humane crises’ on a scale that impacts every living being, our fears are being reflected back to us by events in our personal lives and by those around the world.

I wonder if individual fears of not having enough, of not being loveable, of lacking personal power are the primary sources of the collapse of the world’s economy. They’re a slice of the same global fear apple.

When we live with a focus of greed or a thirst for love that can never be sated, our energies are focused on how to get more of what we think we lack. In the process, we lose touch with the compassionate, generous parts of ourselves that are masked by acts that eschew our humanity.

So what if we make money from fake pharmaceuticals or products tainted by deadly fillers? So what if we take out loans we can never repay and our irresponsibility causes those who have worked their whole lives saving and living within their means lose everything? So what if by stealing from the poor or treating others as if they are less than human causes them to live on the street or in refugee camps? It’s just karma or devaluing others. We earned the right to our good life. They didn’t.

The devastation of our environment is perhaps another manifestation of greed. So what if polluting for profit takes away clean water from those who have little else, destroys ecosystems and creates global warming? If we make enough money, we delude ourselves into believing that we can buy whatever we need—forever and that our needs always come first.

Fear of personal and collective safety enables us to dehumanize our “enemies” so it is easier to righteously declare that we are exercising our right to protect ourselves when we kill them. “An eye for an eye” isn’t about “doing unto others as we would have them do unto us,” it’s about me first. After all, one of “them” is worth a hundred or a thousand of “us.”

We take no responsibility for how our collective racial, religious and socioeconomic fear-based actions co-create what we have come to fear most: rage that wears the mask of terrorism.

In this New Year of atrocious challenges, there are beautiful opportunities to heal not only ourselves, but the world as a whole. Everything we do, think and say has an impact on everyone around us and, by extension, the world.

When we see, face and heal our fears as individuals and human beings, we create energy that touches every corner of the world with love that empowers others to do the same.  Perhaps the most important slogan for 2009 is “Yes! We can stamp out fear.”

Copyright 2009 by Jeanne M. Eck. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint or to quote extensively from this article, please contact the author at iamhappiertoknowyou.com