The Smoke Detector

Even though I was about half my current age, I remember my early married years very, very clearly, in some regards more vividly than things which happened just last month. It was a time of undeniable change, bittersweet in many regards. Kerry and I had wed just after I left the Air Force and as I was returning to college. Like many young, married couples, we had very little money, and watching pennies was a part of our daily routine. We lived not in a real home, but rather in a mobile home, a 10' wide by 55' long trailer, with the wheels pulled off and stored underneath, styrofoam skirting running around the perimeter. This was an old style mobile home, the trailer hitch didn't disconnect off the front like those "fancy" new ones, so we had a small garden planted up front to obscure the eyesore. We lived there with three cats, and an old Buick Skylark I had purchased for $800. We got by, barely. We looked nervously to the future, hopeful but also scared that any small financial hiccup could derail our plans. Excitement for and fear of the future were our constant emotional extremes.

One Saturday evening just prior to the beginning of the fall quarter, we were trying to celebrate with a home cooked dinner of steak and wine. When I say steak, I don't mean a juicy rib eye or T-bone, but rather the cheapest piece of meat that Albertsons had: No marbling, and discounted substantially since it was beyond the "Sell by" date stamped on the package. The wine was from a green bottle with a generic "Chablis" yellow label on it. Vineyard, year, grape type?---Mysteries all. We also had baked potatoes as they were cheap. Beyond that, I don't recall anything else being on the menu. (I'm sure there was a dessert, Kerry loved to bake, but I can't remember what it was.)

In spite of the austerity, it was a special dinner for us, and we were going to enjoy it. Kerry had John Denver playing on the stereo, and I stood at the stove, frying the meat as best I could, when suddenly the shrill sound of the smoke detector went off in the background. Not surprisingly: With 550 square feet of total living space, it took very little to set the thing off.

I've never been fond of noises (especially shrill sounding devices or people), so the alarm grated on me instantly. I ran to the smoke detector, fanning it with all my might to try to silence it. I remember cursing, frustrated with all of it: The small home, lousy food, uncertainty about the future, a car which by all normal standards deserved to be in the junk yard, and now a smoke detector belching at me. I was fuming, frustrated thinking about how hard we had both worked and yet how little we had compared to the "silver spoon" crowd. We lived, after all, in a home which was worth less than the cars many of my fellow classmates drove. That damn smoke detector had really set me off, pushing me away from a pleasant evening into an abyss.

For some reason, and I will never know what triggered this, but as I furiously fanned at the smoke detector, my entire outlook changed, flipping radically from the abyss to one of happiness and contentment-----

Yes, it was small home, but we did have a roof over our head, it didn't even leak, and the heater did a great job keeping us warm. The dinner wasn't much, but we did have food for our stomachs, and we even had cheap wine. We had each other, two friends who trusted one another and who could talk about anything. The future was uncertain, but we were resuming college, and there was a small hope that in a couple of years graduation would propel us forward. The car was old, but it had never let us down. (BTW, I wound up keeping it for 20 more years, but that's a different story unto itself.)

I never have figured out what transpired in my mind and what caused me to instantly change my view of the situation, but in the blink of an eye, my negativity had suddenly changed to a completely different perspective, one of optimism and contentment. Either set of interpretations was accurate---I could look at things negatively or positively with equal ease. The "poor us" observations were accurate, but then again the "we are blessed" thoughts were also valid. Both views were "right," but for some reason I had suddenly chosen the much more positive viewpoint. My attitude and outlook changed in a flash, and the ensuing evening could not have been better. I wish I could say it had been a turning point in my life, but at least for that evening it was a very valuable eye-opener, showing me the strength and importance of my thoughts.

What I didn't realize at the time was that I had stumbled across something known as Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, by Albert Ellis. The gist of the theory is that actions do not directly lead to emotions, but rather actions plus our belief systems lead to emotions. What happens in this world is filtered by what we think and how we view it. Those views determine our perception of reality. For example, imagine a race: Second place might be considered a great accomplishment, or the more jaded may choose to label it "the first loser." Either view is correct, and it's our interpretation, how we choose to experience it, that determines how it is perceived. In the more modern sense, the REBT theory has been euphemistically rephrased as the "attitude is everything" concept. How we view things determines how we feel about them and how we thus act or react.

So, one moral of the smoke detector story is that attitude truly is everything...life is determined by our attitude, how we view things, and the belief filters we put in place. Everything else follows from our mental interpretation. There's undoubtedly truth to that, I've lived and felt it myself many a time, and we all need to work on remembering the idea. You can, truly, take a marginal or even negative situation, mentally recast it, and feel quite differently about the whole matter in just a few minutes. When it works, it is a valuable tool, and an exercise I try to remember as often as I possibly can. It's deceptively easy and powerful when used appropriately.

I would contend, however, that attitude, while critical, is not everything per se: Reality matters as well. Yes, opinions and thoughts can be changed by adopting a healthier view over an unhealthy one, but our view of a situation (which can be mitigated) is also be tempered by facts. To paraphrase Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's pretty damned hard to self-actualize when your basic human needs aren't being met. The reason I belabor this point is that we need to keep both perspectives in mind when trying to "cheer up" others. If we can mitigate our own pain with positive thoughts, that is fantastic, but don't allow the same thought or advice on another's plight to come across as indifference to his or her pain. Some pain in this world is very real, and to be human is to acknowledge the hardships others may face.

Put differently, Pollyannaish thinking can't obscure all the facts, especially when we need to look at the pains of another. We can apply our own belief filters to a given situation, we can suggest them to somebody else, but don't force those beliefs on another who may be living a completely different reality than the one you enjoy.

For example, it's very easy for most of us to say that hunger is not a problem in this world; few of us ever miss meals (save for the occasional diet) so indeed, for the average American, hunger is at most a fleeting inconvenience. Try telling a starving, homeless person, however, that hunger is not a problem. Try explaining to somebody who does not know where his next meal is coming from that his pain of being hungry isn't real. No amount of emotional recasting will take away that very basic, very real human need. Physiological needs are at the very bottom of Maslow's triangle.

Most people would say loneliness is not an issue; in fact, many of my friends lament they wish they had more alone time and even admit to occasional envy of those without spouses or children. Wouldn't it be fun, after all, to go back to those carefree bachelor/bachelorette days, when all you had to worry about was your own happiness, your own feelings? Try telling somebody who truly is alone in this world, however, that loneliness is not a problem. Tell them that another birthday, another Christmas alone is preferable to being with somebody or with a family. You'll get the same pained look that you did off that homeless person. Social needs are but a bit higher in Maslow's triangle than are physiological needs.

Remember both examples as you sit down to dinner with your family. There are too many lonely people out there, too many people who won't have dinner tonight. At a minimum, acknowledge their pain, their loss, before dismissing it as an attitude problem.

"Anyone who attempts to make an emergency picture into a typical one, and who will measure all of man's goals and desires by his behavior during extreme physiological deprivation, is certainly blind to many things. It is quite true that man lives by bread alone — when there is no bread." Abraham Maslow