Gratitude

For a little over a month I've been keeping a gratitude journal. Every night right before I turn out my light, I write down at least three things I'm grateful for about the day I just had. Some days I write a lot more than three things and other days I have to write things like “I'm grateful there are only two days left in the workweek” (and the next day followed by “I'm grateful there is only one day left in the work week”).

One thing that keeping a gratitude journal has taught me already is to look for things to be grateful for in my day and make a mental note of them. Even if they don't make it into the actual gratitude journal because I don't remember by the end of the day, making a mental note of the good things that happen helps me stay positive and in a state of gratitude throughout the day.

I plan on making the gratitude journal a part of my regular spiritual practice because I really think it's made a difference in the short time I've been keeping it. Gratitude isn't just for Thanksgiving, though it's great to have a whole day full of gratitude too.

Asking For Help

There are a lot of things that are hard for me, and asking for help is one of those things. It's something that's never been easy for me, but that I didn't see as a problem until I decided to live in intentional community during my CCSC year. I struggled to both ask for help when I needed it and to voice my needs to my community, especially if I thought my needs might be difficult for community members to understand or meet. However, I came to place a high value on my community (and community in general). Part of community is being vulnerable, taking risks, helping others, and allowing others to help me, so towards the end of the year I began to get a little better at asking for help and voicing my needs.

Still, I have a long way to go. Recently, I had car trouble and my initial thought was that I had to figure out how to take care of it by myself (not fix the car—I know I can't do that—but get it to the mechanic and get myself home). Really, I was perfectly capable of calling AAA by myself. However, a friend offered to try to jump my car so that maybe I wouldn't have to get it towed and go with me to the auto shop and give me a ride home.

I didn't even ask her, but it was even hard for me to accept help that was offered freely. Partly, it was hard for me to accept help from my friend because we have only known each other a very short time and I don't know how I can return the favor, but—as my friend pointed out—doing nice things for people shouldn't have to be “paid back” and I certainly wouldn't expect anything if the situation was reversed.

Jumping the car didn't work so I did call AAA, but I was very thankful to have someone wait for the tow truck with me because it was dark and I had to wait for over an hour in a parking lot in downtown Buffalo. Also, having someone fun to wait with made it the most enjoyable car trouble I've ever had.

This experience made me question if I changed in my often stubborn refusal to ask for help over the past year as I hoped I had. I may not have. Instead, I trusted my community enough to do something outside of my comfort zone and that is a different kind of progress and demonstrates how wonderful my community was.

Even if I couldn't ask for help, a year ago I might have refused the help that was offered and then sat in the parking lot very bored, slightly scared, and wishing I would have accepted help, so maybe there is some progress after all.

VOICE Buffalo's Public Meeting

Sunday afternoon I went to VOICE Buffalo's annual public meeting. VOICE Buffalo is a faith-based community organization that is working on projects many projects in the community. I wanted to do a write-up about the meeting, but my thoughts don't seem to be coming together on it, but I wanted to write something...

I am interested in safe neighborhoods, education, public transportation, transitioning former inmates (particularly youth) back into the community, and extending the millionaires tax cut; however, I work with National Fuel Gas every day so that's what I found most interesting.

One of the things they talked about was the “National Fuel Campaign For Fairness” with the National Fuel Accountability Coalition. I've recently had a small a run-in with NFG and I have lots of clients who have big problems with NFG, so this was something I was quite interested in. At the meeting, I learned that the CEO of NFG (David Smith, in case you care) makes about $3,500 an hour. Yeah, an hour. That's double what I make in a month. Last winter, NFG ran over 2,000 adds on TV in the Buffalo area about their winterization efforts even though last year they didn't spend a single dollar of their profits on winterization. NFG's winterization efforts are funded through donations they ask for in their customer's bills. I don't have a bill yet, but I did receive something asking for money for different programs they have (also, they spelled my name “Maty,” so that's one more black mark against them in my book).

Think of all the winterization NFG could do with just one hour a week of their CEO's pay check. Of course, that wouldn't really be to their benefit since it would lower heating costs for the customers who had their homes winterized. On Tuesday, I went to a utilities workshop for work that was sponsored by NFG. The representative from NFG who spoke talked about how little profit they actually make because of how much they help people who have trouble paying their bills (I don't see this happening much at all--what I see is NFG cooperating with non-profits like Catholic Charities and government-funded programs to pay the bills for the clients and sometimes forgiving a small amount of the bill as long as most of it is paid for by the programs). I know that a lot of their profits come from places other than customers, but they can't be doing too poorly if their CEO makes about 7.1 million a year.

Back to the VOICE Buffalo meeting—VOICE is working to organizing meetings with community representatives and National Fuel. Recently, they have also successfully pressured NFG into increasing their winterization efforts by 50% (and this includes using some of their own money).

Some other things I learned at the VOICE Buffalo meeting:

--Buffalo's High School graduation rate is 50% and for black males the graduation rate is only 25%. This is embarrassing for Buffalo and if the Millionaires tax is cut, funding for schools will be cut by 20%, which certainly will mean nothing good for those percentages.

--Eliminating the Millionaires tax would decrease funding to Medicaid by 25%

My favorite quote of the meeting was “love is the only force capable of turning enemies into friends.”

I learned a lot at the meeting and it certainly made me want to get more involved in my community to help creative positive change; however, they didn't offer any volunteer opportunities except one that took place during the day on a week while I'm at work. They did give the opportunity to donate money, but I don't have a whole lot of that.

End Domestic Violence

As you may know, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and tomorrow, Wednesday October 19th, is the day to wear violet to end domestic violence. But, don't just wear it--talk about it, to to a speak-out, go to Take Back the Night, stop victim blaming, stop thinking about DV as "just another women's issue," and hold criminals responsible. Change the culture.

Needs vs. Wants

One of the things we did early on in CCSC was separating our "needs" from our "wants." In American culture things that are really "wants" are often perceived as "needs." These needs and wants can be material things or they can be other things like having free time or being in a romantic relationship. Differentiating between needs and wants helps when living on a small budget, and it also helps keep life simple. Sometimes when something stays on the "wants" list long enough, I decide I don't really want it that much after all.

There are a lot of things that I need and a lot of things that I want right now as I move into an apartment, start my new job, and shop for a car. Most of the things I'm worried about right now are material things because these are more basic than having my emotional needs met (basic Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs) . So, I made a list of "needs" and "wants" (both lists are pretty long) and then I put the needs into two categories: things I need right away and things I need, but can wait a little while. This is helping me to prioritize since I have very little money right now and, even though I have a job, I won't have a pay check for a while and even once I start getting paid, I won't be paid much.

A year ago I would have made a list with needs and wants all mixed up together and I might have gotten things in the order of how much I thought about them. For example, I really really want a haircut because my hair is driving me crazy, but I don't actually need one, so I'll wait until September or October once I get everything on my "needs" list. Although it's annoying to live with bad hair, it's more important that I get things like a bed, rain boots, and a sturdy umbrella that can handle the Buffalo wind (the wind broke two cheap ones last year).

It's interesting that one of the first things we talked about in CCSC is one of the first things I'm using post-CCSC to keep with the Simplicity pillar in my life.