I Am Happier To Know You

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

I love country life. In many ways, I am seeing that it is a lifestyle I have yearned for.

I love the quiet, the opportunity to watch wildlife from every window of our house, even the constant parade of workers (“My harem” as Chuck calls them) who are implementing the changes that are turning our home and land into exactly what we want.

Now that the inside of our house is nearly finished (for now), with the arrival of warmer weather I have been concentrating on the removal of an abundance of weeds that have taken over every landscaped inch around our home. I have tilled each section, laid about a thousand yards of what I call “weed rugs” to suffocate the pests into submission and scattered nearly 200 bags of mulch. The ultimate goal is to achieve low maintenance and simple, but beautiful gardens for at least a few years.

I have learned to drive our truck that will also safely pull our horse trailer. Because of its massive, intimidating size, I call it “Mr. Testosterone.” It seems to know its way to every hardware store and nursery within a hundred mile radius! Our Kubota, an all terrain vehicle has been dubbed “Kubudda” because it has a large bed that makes my life so much easier by hauling the tools I need to work around the property.

I have learned that my desire to protect all wildlife is not always in its or our best interest. Last week a beautiful skunk began to wander around the yard during daylight hours. Since they are nocturnal, this was a warning sign I did not understand until our tile mason alerted me to the real possibility that the skunk was rabid. He killed it with his small shotgun. Immediately thereafter, vultures appeared to do their job. To my surprise, they sat and looked at the skunk as if trying to decide where to begin their small feast. I later learned that prey birds and animals intuitively know not to eat a rabid animal. Therefore, without touching it, I thanked the birds for being so smart and scooped the skunk into a wooden box. I placed it in our burn barrel (used to burn paper, etc. since we do not have garbage pickup), poured a little gasoline and some fresh wildflowers on top and cremated the poor thing.

I have learned how to make nonpoisonous weed killer and how to treat our ponds for algae and plants without harming the water or the environment and to use the wonderful resources available to us through the local Farm Bureau and Department of Agriculture.

I have come to understand why I, too will have only a farmer’s tan. There are fire ants everywhere. They attack in seconds and leave painful welts on any part of the body that is exposed. If you are allergic to them, the only thing that will save your life is an EpiPpen. We now have two.

Steel-toe boots and long pants are a necessity even when working in the yard. When using any kind of machinery, they protect against accidents to the feet and legs, bites from fire ants and any poisonous snakes that have gotten past our feisty outdoor cats. A wide-brim hat is necessary if you do not want to fry your brains in the strong sunlight.

Being around and observing our neighbors, I have developed a deep appreciation for their work ethic and willingness to drop what they are doing to help someone in need. They get up early and go to bed pretty close to sunset. Whether raising cattle, chickens, other livestock, hay, fruit, nuts or vegetables, their lives revolve around the weather. Too much rain is as bad as too little.

To my amusement, after a heavy rain, workmen are uncomfortable driving on our dirt road. To them minor flooding and mud holes are waiting to suck their trucks into oblivion. Since they have never experienced a monsoon season or roads that are impassable in perfect weather, I chuckle silently. It is all about what you are used to!

The people around me work seven days a week with time off for church on Sunday. In their spare time, they make money from cottage industries. Our painter and his wife cater community events and grow corn so that they can create a maze of cornstalks school groups enjoy losing themselves in. Others teach school during the day, tutor in the afternoon and work as wait staff in local hangouts on weekends. They always have time to help a neighbor and host parties in community parks everyone is invited to. Compared to them, my life is a breeze.

People are friendly. They wave when you pass them on the road and welcome you into their stores and homes. Everyone has time to talk about the weather and how the TV meteorologist messed up the forecast again. Until they know you, they will call you Ma’am or Miss or Mister. When you offer someone a cool drink, they rarely accept unless you have a relationship with them.

As always, it is wonderful to be busy, and to choose to take the time to observe the wonders around me, and the opportunity to think while working outside…

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.

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