Category Archives: Commentary

Is the world a good or bad place?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Good world or bad world?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

You create the world you live in.

The question of whether the world is inherently a good place seems like a simple question on the surface, but how you answer the question and why you chose the answer you do has a profound effect on your life.

How would we go about finding out the answer to this question?

Should you look for evidence or trust your gut?

Is this something you “just know” or do your beliefs dictate that answer?

The evidence for a bad world.

There is certainly a huge amount of evidence that the world is, in fact, an awful place. Each night on the evening news we see a number of stories about crimes and killings, disasters, and suffering.

Our history books are a litany of examples of how terrible a place the world can be. From the Holocaust to the killing fields from what was Yugoslavia to the invasion of Chad, everything bears witness that man is capable of constant unabated cruelty to his fellow man.

Each night the stories from the Middle East bring us yet another example of ways in which this world is a horrific place. Are there no limits to how bad our world can be? Is the story of our world a horror-filled nightmare?

On rare occasions, we get good news.

Most newscasts try to wrap up their parade of suffering, with a “feel-good story.” Mother Teresa feeds the poor and the fireman rescued a trapped puppy or kitten. There are stories of people opening their homes to the victims of tragedies and those who try to do good in the world.

This episodic dose of good news seems like a dash of salt on the wounds of all the terrible things in the world. Are there so few good things happening in the world or is there a systematic basis in our media to present the bad in preference to the good?

Bad news sells the paper or the broadcast. A sprinkling of good news may keep us from throwing away the paper and turning off the broadcast. Is good news really such a rarity or is it that we have an insatiable appetite for the dark and evil side of mankind?

Forgive at this point the gender basis of the term mankind. While males seem to stand in the spotlight of bad behavior. I have little doubt that some women are capable of equivalent misdeeds.

When we add up all the evidence for good and bad we don’t get a total.

Every person on earth may be having a different experience of the goodness and the badness of this world. Even collecting all those scores and adding them or subtracting them won’t give us the result we are looking for. Times change, things get worse and then better and then worse again. We can’t ever be sure we have the final tabulation of the worth of the experience of life here on earth. How else may we determine the goodness or badness of this planet?

Some people just can’t help believing in the good of their fellow humans.

There are those people, disgustingly happy people, who despite the evidence see this world as a good and happy place. They chose to see things in a rosy glow despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Psychology tells us, at least one of the classes I took did, that realistic people are depressed and happy people live in an unrealistic world. So are happy people really delusional? And if so should we medicate them to make them more realistically depressed? Possibly continuing to believe in a good and beneficial world in some ways makes the world a tad better.

Some people staunchly believe that all people are essentially bad.

This point of view appears to be a widely held one, particularly by parents of small children who report they are convinced that unless supervised every moment from birth to death these children will, at the first opportunity, do all manner of nasty things.

There are those religious groups who will insist that being sinfully evil is the inherent nature of man and that only a large dose of following rituals and self-punishment to the tune they are playing will suffice to make these people less than totally unacceptable to some religious body and presumably their specific higher power.

You get to choose your worldview.

All the evidence notwithstanding, you can decide that you will like and enjoy the trip we call life. Or you can insist on thinking the worse about what will happen.

Jeff Bell in his book about overcoming OCD “When in Doubt Make Belief.” Talks about the helpfulness of creating beliefs that reduce your doubt. My view is that belief creates hope, and hope makes recovery and a happy life possible.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy along with positive psychology recommends picking beliefs that are helpful. For me, that would be believing those things that result in having a happy life regardless of the evidence to the contrary. If the belief is helpful it may be useful.

This also means that you may need to be aware that there will always be exceptions. You can insist that people are basically good and a few people will do evil things or you can insist that most people are evil and a few occasionally do good deeds. The choice is yours.

Personally, I go for having a happy life even though that means I may miss seeing some of the bad in the world. You can do either. The choice is up to you. Which belief do you want?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

What is Recycling?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Recyclable materials

Recycling.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do you really believe in recycling?

We have heard a lot about recycling in the last few years. Containers are marked recyclable. There are recycling centers and articles galore on the internet about how to recycle and what to recycle. Some people even describe themselves as “recyclers.” The biggest question in my mind is what precisely is getting recycled. Is recycling about things or about people?

People who talk recycling may be speaking many different languages.

It recently came to my attention that when people say recycle they may be talking about many totally different behaviors. They are also not in agreement on what needs to be recycled. Let me explain.  I have been in the habit of thinking of myself as a recycler for a long time. Other people just recently joined the recycling activity. We don’t all approach recycling in the same way or for the same reasons.

Cities have put on a big push to encourage recycling.

Cities, counties, sanitation districts, and so on have been pushing recycling because they needed to reduce the amount of materials entering landfills. Eventually, the dumps get full, and then we need to create another. All this, burying things, and then digging new holes for the next batch costs money. Bury less stuff and the agency involved spends less money. Money matters, but it is not the only thing that should matter.

All that waste that gets buried and then some of it decomposes. That results in gasses. Some of those gasses are flammable, some dumps are burning underground and some have exploded. Avoiding these problems is a good thing but that alone does not motivate a lot of people to recycle.

The residues of all that buried stuff are full of chemicals. Some of these substances are toxic and if water flows through all that rubbish it can reach the groundwater.  I am OK with drinking bottled water but do we really want to have to use that bottled stuff for cooking and bathing? How much caustic chemical do you want to rub all over your body in your morning shower?

All these are wonderful reasons to recycle, but that is not what most people in my town, and I will guess yours also, are thinking about when they talk about being recyclers.

Recycling centers pay cash for bottles and cans.

Paying cash for glass, metals and some plastics has really increased the amount of material getting recycled and this has kept a lot of stuff out of our landfills. It has also created a sort of marginal form of employment.

What many people mean when they say they recycle is that they separate out the part of their trash that they can sell to someone and get cash for. The rest of that stuff may be reusable but unless they are getting paid for it, they couldn’t be bothered.

Nowadays lots of people are picking up bottles and cans along the roadside and going through trash cans digging out things they can take somewhere and get money for.

I have witnessed “recyclers” who pull a couple of cans from the trash can for the few cents they will bring all the while tossing an armload of paper which could have been remanufactured into that self-same trash.

Thrift stores and charities do another kind of recycling.

There was a time when things were scarcer and it paid to repair broken items. Becoming a “repair” person was a potential occupation. Today many things are less expensive to replace than to repair. Worn or unwanted items get donated to thrift stores and charities.

Those items that are still in usable condition can be resold to fund future operations. Most charities receive a whole lot of donations that are hardly usable or which would require more cost and effort to repair than what they will bring. Disposing of the unsalvageable donations has become a significant problem for many charities.

Lots of waste materials can be used to create new things.

Paper can be reprocessed to make the next generation of paper. My belief is that many more things could be reprocessed or reused but the economics of collecting enough material and then reprocessing that material exceeds the cost of just making new items from scratch.

Briefly, we flirted with the idea of using garbage and waste food products to make alcohol. Vegetable-based fuel can be made but with the increased production of petroleum products and the decline in prices alternative fuels are becoming less and less viable.

Recycling may be useful to mankind in improving the environment, but to the individual, unless the recycling center will pay you to bring things in most people do not see these items as in any way recyclable.

Sometimes people need to recycle themselves.

People that were discarded by society because of their problems can be recycled also.

The mentally ill can recover. The addict and the alcoholic can get clean and sober and resume their place in society.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

When old – you just sit.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

man sitting

When you’re old you just sit.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Has your life become – just sitting?

Recently I have been talking with and hearing from an increasing number of “older people.” In the past, I have steadfastly avoided learning about the elderly in the belief that I did not know any of them. This belief, that neither I nor anyone I know is yet in that elderly class is constantly getting challenged by people who ask “How old are you?” with an incredulous look.

Those annoying people who sell medical insurance continue to force this topic on me by sending me advertisements asking me to switch my old-age insurance to their company. Worse yet they have been sending those notices to me for some years now. One of my life goals has become to outlive some of these annoying insurance companies.

My thinking, at this junction, is that being old is a combination of the effects of the physical process of aging and the mental attitude one takes towards this process. Self-care along the way is certainly a factor. Unfortunately, I learned that life lesson later rather than earlier. While my body may be accumulating aches and pains, defects of the body, I continue to work on keeping my mental faculties working.

I read somewhere that when you get old you just sit.

This was reported in an article about a woman who had passed her hundredth birthday. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I can see that it might be nice to be relaxed and no longer stressed running hither and yon. But then it might also be that once you stop moving, at least mentally, your life loses purpose.

I have forgotten who that woman was or what age milestone she had just passed. This is a shame because I have a long-held belief that once you start school you have to stop counting half-years as in four-and-a-half and you do not get to begin counting those half years again until you pass that hundred mark. Anyone who lives past one hundred years ought to be recognized more than once per year.

You are all invited to my one-hundred-and-a-half birthday celebration. My fervent hope is that I will be able to attend it with you and will be lucid enough to realize what this gathering is for.

It has become apparent to me however that a lot of people entering those golden years have neither gold nor years. In fact, one great loss among the elderly is a loss of purpose. What do you do when you can’t go to school or work?

Young people are rushing to enter their disabled-years.

It is fully understandable that as we age we can accumulate injuries and disorders. As life moves on some people find it hard to get up and move around. For them, life’s high point may well be waking up and being able to watch some video entertainment.

What surprises me is the number of very young people who are resigned to sitting worshiping a talking box or a moving wall image. Have you all not heard the more time you spend seated the sooner that chair may become attached to your anatomy?

Despite all the encouragement to get up, out and exercise, more and more people past the age of 5 seem most motivated to sit as much as possible.

Has exercise become a spectator sport?

Lots of people drive in their cars (seated) to a sporting event where they can watch (seated) athletes perform. This is sometimes called “playing” a game.  Though most sporting events past preschool take on all the playfulness of gladiator bouts.

An oft-heard life plan is to work hard enough to make enough money to be able to sit around and do nothing. Once you retire from the active world of work, it would appear that you have to join a gym, take up golf, or otherwise pay others to allow you to exercise.

Why are there so few hero action figures of old people?

There was a time when old people figured prominently in our culture. Think of father time and the Greek god Zeus. Now that I think of it the Christian deity, when he gets any consideration at all is depicted as an elderly man.

It will soon be Christmas. Santa Clause used to be a prominent personality at this time of year. The last few years Saint Nick, and his propensity for generosity has been losing ground to Ghosts, vampires, turkeys, the babies of the New Year, and cupid. Getting the latest entertainment device has supplanted giving the gift of happiness in our common lives.

My suspicion is that one reason for our cultural shift from old people and wisdom to preschool heroes is that giving required getting up and doing, while receiving can be done passively in a seated position.

If, at this time of year you find yourself  “just sitting”, my hope for you is that this is a reward for a lot of lifetime doing, not the beginning of your resignation to spending the rest of your life in the not doing, seated position.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

When being OK is not a good thing.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

ok

When being OK is not a good thing.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Some days being OK is a long way from being good.

The other day I asked someone how they were doing.

They said, “I am doing OK and that’s not a good thing.”

This got me to thinking about how often we ask someone how they are doing and take that OK as a positive response.

Sometimes doing OK is a really bad thing. Let me explain.

What does being OK mean to a homeless person?

Ask any homeless person how they are doing and you are likely to get an OK unless they trust you enough for a more factual response like “How do you think I am doing? Or “My life sucks!”

For a homeless person, OK may mean they had something to eat last night or yesterday. It could mean that they didn’t get rolled or beaten for their belongings last night. It is a long way from being able to say they got their needs, physical, emotional, or medical, met any time recently.

What OK may mean for a homeless person is that their mental illness or drug addiction hasn’t totally destroyed them – yet.

What’s OK mean when you have a mental illness?

People with a mental illness try their hardest to be “OK” as if trying could prevent mental illness. For some, an OK day means they are not suicidal today. The voices are at a manageable level or their depression has not gotten so horrific that they are unable to get out of bed. Maybe OK means they are not suicidal – today.

Being OK when you have a mental illness is a long way from being stable or symptoms free. Mostly when you have a mental illness and you are having an OK day you are trying really hard to not show how difficult your life really is.

What is OK for the couple who can’t get along?

The couple in relationship counseling, for them OK may mean that today they didn’t fight, not as much anyway. For them, OK may be a day when they are not planning their divorce. Sometimes it means that despite the separation or the divorce today they managed to get up and pretend they were over the break-up and having a happy life.

Maybe today “OK” for people with a troubled or failing relationship means a day where the pain is a little less acute. Sometimes OK just means I will make it through today but I don’t know about tomorrow.

How is OK for the terminally ill person?

Sit around a waiting room in a critical care facility or visit the intensive care wards in any hospital. You will find some incredibly sick people in some severe pain. Ask them how they are doing?  You will probably get an OK.

For the terminally ill “OK” may mean that the pain isn’t any worse today than yesterday. More likely it means they are trying their hardest to hang on and make some sense of this experience that we call life. OK may mean that they are resigned to their suffering.

What is an OK day for the elderly?

What’s OK to someone in a long-term care facility? Not the fancy kind the well-to-do see but the publicly funded ones where people who have no family and friends left, go to be stored until they cede their bed to the next occupant when they die.

You hear a lot of OK’s in those kinds of facilities. What that means is that they have become numb to loneliness or isolation. It may mean that they have managed to get out of bed today or that they are doing their best to just sit there waiting for whatever.

What is OK for the addict/ alcoholic?

For the addict, an OK day may mean that the withdrawal symptoms are getting less painful. This may be the day that they were able to make it all day without drinking or using even when the cravings were about to drive them crazy.

If today your own mind was not yelling at you all day that you needed a drink or some dope that might be an OK day. If you were able to make it to a meeting or treatment today even while having those thoughts and cravings the whole time, then for you today was an OK day.

Saying OK does not mean you are cured, that you will never drink or use again. It means that you just might make it through today clean and sober.

Forgive me if I question you.

So if when I ask you how you are doing and you tell me “OK,” can you see why I might ask you if that is a good thing or a bad thing? See for some people an OK day is nowhere near a good day.

Next time you have someone tell you they are OK and you know they are going through it, think of a way to make them laugh or smile. Is there a way you can lighten that load and make their OK day less burdensome? Maybe you can be the one who can make someone’s OK day just a little brighter.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Be a good one of those!

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Sunday Inspiration      Post By David Joel Miller.

Me being me

Me being me
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”  ― Abraham Lincoln

Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you.  Sunday seems like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.

 

Have you figured out who you are yet?

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Me keeps changing

Me keeps changing
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Sunday Inspiration      Post By David Joel Miller.

“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” 
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you.  Sunday seems like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.  

Self-Exploration

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Sunday Inspiration      Post By David Joel Miller.

Self-Exploration

Self-Exploration
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Self-Exploration

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

― George Bernard Shaw

Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you.  Sunday seems like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.

Today is Independence Day

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Today is Independence Day. What does that mean?

Declaration of independence.

Independence.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality ~ George Washington

That Disability Line Looked Awfully Tempting!

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Ever wonder about those disability lines and parking spaces? This post says a lot about what it means to be disabled and the role your attitude plays in what you can and can’t do. It touched me and I hope you will find it as touching as I did.

 

5kidswdisabilities's avatarRaising 5 Kids With Disabilities and Remaining Sane Blog

o-WAITING-IN-LINE-AIR-JORDANS-facebook

Needing to get a picture ID, Marie and I went into the black hole named the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Despite many years of revamping, that place can still take 4 hours to navigate. It was with this background that I bring up the option of the line for people with disabilities. Actually, there WAS no line. Tempting. MMMMMMMM. Marie has a disability. Teaching her to be more independent, I was actually only accompanying her while showing her that SHE can maneuver through the system. Without parental assistance, she really DID have a disability. But I have raised my children not to see their disabilities but their abilities. She may not talk or hear, but, armed with all of the appropriate paperwork filled out and the certificates of existence she needed, (birth certificate and social security card,) she has the capabilities of writing what she wants to say and reading…

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Stick out and you will get teased or bullied.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Looking different can get you teased.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Ever wonder why they pick on you?

People who get picked on start to think there is something wrong with them. They write in to my blog and others, asking what is wrong with them. They ask why do people not like them and criticize them. The details are often different but I see a constant theme in these comments and questions. The person who is being picked on starts thinking this has something to do with them.

Humans, and animals too like the familiar. They feel more comfortable when everyone is exactly the same. Anything outside the norm gets noticed and frequently that notice is disapproval. The human version of beauty is largely one of the extreme average. Any deviation from the norm is downgraded.

People who look differently than others get attacked. So do those who act or talk differently. You can be totally average in all respects but one, that one aspect where you have diverged will be the one that gets noticed. This preference for the average, this teasing of those who are different includes physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral characteristics.

There are a few times when fashion dictates that you look “different” but mostly we all want to look different in the same way all our contemporaries do. Tye dye or Goth we all look different in a very average way.

There are a few times when we make exceptions for people who are far enough away from the mean. Really tall men are OK if they play basketball. Very tall women are accepted if they are models. Most of the time though, if you are a few inches taller or a few I.Q. points above average, you will get flack until you find your niche in life. If you can figure out a way to make money off your difference you may get a pass on the teasing. But until you make that money expect the criticism to rain down on you. Even then, just because you become President or Pope, you are not exempt from the attacks on your uniqueness.

Let’s look at some examples of things that will get you teased and then some possible solutions to this teasing. There are solutions that work and ones that do not. The ones most people try are the ones that are unlikely to work.

The Physical, Nose, Ears, Eyes, and Face

No one gets teased because they have an average nose. Let your nose be too long or too short, too flat or too protruding, that unique nose will get criticized. The nose is an easy target for attack. It stands out from the face and is visible.

Ears are easy targets. They stick out also. Big ears or small ones makes no matter. Girls, who get their ears pierced or don’t get them pierced get teased. So do boys.

Are your eyes the wrong color? Which color is in and which is out? Is your hair right or wrong? What is the “in” thing this year? Facial hair goes in and out. You need the same style and length as everyone else if you want to fit in.

Besides the face, people get teased for their weight. Too skinny or too fat. You need to be very close to average if you want to be acceptable. Busts and butts all seem to get graded. Too big, too small, not many just right.

Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral differences get you teased.

The kids who need extra help and struggle, whether it is because of a learning disability or just a different learning style, you will get teased. Can’t hear or see, need glasses? You will get the shunning treatment and maybe even get to ride the short bus. That difference will get you teased also.

Say you are really smart, does that get you out of the teasing queue? Not a chance. If you are smart you get teased because you are not athletic. You athletes do not get off either. Remember all the sayings about dumb jocks?

Whether you are very emotional or not emotional at all you will fall outside the norm and being different in any way results in you standing out. Those who stand out get teased.

The solutions that do not work.

Getting surgically altered.

Plastic surgeons can do wonders these days. If you were born with a birth defect or were injured, plastic surgery may be just the thing for you. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to go under the knife for the wrong reasons. Having surgery will not make them stop teasing you or make more people like you. You may look different but you are still you and they will find something else to tease you about.

Notice how many people have multiple surgeries. They expected to be beautiful and loved. When the surgery did not produce the miracle they hoped for they blame the doctor or get another surgery.

Being perfect.

Perfection is an illusion. The more you pursue it the further away it will move. Trying to be perfect and satisfy everyone will please no one. Do not cheat yourself out of a life by trying to please others.

Being really good at something.

No matter how many championships you win or how many degrees you have there is always “what you have done lately.” Billionaires still get teased or criticized for their looks or their family.

Eating disorders.

Starving or binging and purging will not get you the positive things you hoped for. A healthy lifestyle is good. Losing some weight may be just what you need to do. But do not think that there is any weight that will get you off the teasing hook. You will just get teased for your diet or exercise plan.

What does work?

Radical acceptance.

Accept yourself as you are. Know that you will get teased and criticized in life. The only people who escape this teasing thing, or maybe they just get less of it than others, are the ones who are totally bland and never stand out in any way. The best way to become a better person is to accept yourself the way you are and then go about become the best you possible.

Successes are the best revenge.

Kids who were teased in elementary school sometimes grow up to be actors, successful businessmen, or brilliant scholars. Success is not all about money or power it is also about creating a life full of purpose and happiness. Stop caring about all those comments about you and go out and live the best life possible.

Thanks to the reader who asked why people teased him and how despite surgeries the teasing did not end. I hope that the reader and others will find something useful in this post.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

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