Six Questions for Making Decisions

Six Questions for Making Decisions 

1. What is my goal?

2. Does this move me closer to or further from my goal?

3. Am I being mean spirited? 

4. Is it already in the past? 

5. Will commenting on it make the other person feel better or worse worse?

6. Will commenting on it change our relationship?

These are six questions I developed from practice that are designed to help me make decisions in my life. 

We have goals every day of our lives, whether we are conscious of them or not. We set and accomplish most goals without giving them a thought. Getting breakfast is a goal. Getting a shower and a shave, and getting dressed are goals. More difficult tasks require more complex goal setting. Getting a college degree is a complicated goal that requires great planning and tracking (measuring). Long term goals require periodic measuring to see what our progress is and to estimate when we might complete our goal. Measuring progress of a goal let's us know if it is realistic to think we can complete the goal, or if we should change the goal, or even abandon the goal.

Before setting a goal, one question should be asked: is this goal worthy?

To be the meanest man in town is not a worthwhile goal.

Most of us will set a goal to lose weight at some point in our lives. A motivation leads us to set a goal. Regarding weight loss goals, the motivation is frequently the external event of something that we want to look good for or at. Frequent motivations are high school reunions, weddings, ceremonies. Those are poor motivations because they are part of a D.I.E.T. mentality, meaning Do It Every Time (wash, rinse, repeat.) By that, I mean, we go on a rigorous diet and exercise program to lose weight to look good for a specific event, and then we go right back to the lifestyle that made us fat. Meaning, we'll get fat again. I speak as an experienced practitioner of this. Health is a much better motivation. It has the possibility of becoming permanent in our lifestyle. Losing weight for health is a worthwhile goal.

To give you some background, I have lived with depression since I was ten years old. I grew up in a small Oklahoma town so mental health professionals were unknown to me. I was in a terrible automobile accident December 19th, 2019, and during recovery, I gained weight. In January, 2023, I began to experience PTSD and my doctor prescribed Paxil for me. That ended my depression and I set a goal to reduce my weight to 170 lbs. (77.1 kg.).

What is my goal?  My goal is to weigh 170 lbs.

But a goal without a time point is actually  only a wish. 

My goal is to reduce my weight to 170 lbs. by losing 4 ounces each day for 90-120 days.

Now I have a goal defined that I can measure daily by stepping on a scale. 

Now for the actions that I can control that lead to achieving my goal. I can control what I choose to eat, both quantity and quality. I must decide what foods I can eat, and which foods I cannot eat. 

That brings me to the next question: Does this move me closer to, or further from my goal?

I learned a lot about calories first. I read "Protein Power," by the Doctors Eades, "Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution," by Robert Atkins, and two books by Gary Taubes, "Good Calories, Bad Calories," and "Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It."

I decided to follow a program of low carbohydrates, high fat, and protein. Actually, I've done it before and had great success. But I got off of my program and regained weight. I weigh every day, in the morning, in just my underwear, after urinating. My weight will change through the week so measuring every day is a requirement for me to measure progress.

Every day, the second question comes into play. Does this move me closer to or further from my goal? A donut? Further. A small salad? Closer. Not exercising? Further. Walking three miles?  Closer. It isn't easy. Knowledge alone isn't power. Knowledge is only power when it's used to make positive decisions. Knowledge is a tool to make good choices over bad choices. 

Question 3, Am I being mean spirited? This is more about getting through the day without creating feelings in me that I will regret tomorrow. Revenge is at the top of the list. Any time I do anything to get back at anyone for any slight I perceive  always blows up on me. An example. A neighbor died and the house was demolished, so there is a spare driveway between some houses. Different people use it. One day, it was open and I was annoyed at its constant use by one man. When he left, I thought about moving my pickup over to it to block him from using it. I  quickly realized that this would be mean spirited. I chose not to do it and I chose to add that to my questions.

The next questions are closely related to each other. 

Is it already in the past? Will commenting on it make the other person feel better or worse? Will commenting on it change our relationship?

These are about relationship controls and boundaries. If your partner has already done something that you don't like, then it's in the past and you can not change it. Commenting on what cannot be changed anyway only allows the partner to choose negative responses. Commenting negatively on what cannot be changed and creating negative responses causes relationship changes, usually in the form of revenge. These are little revenges but a continuous string of little revenges destroys a relationship just as effectively as a great revenge. It's called letting go. We don't have to keep everything, and some things, we shouldn't keep at all. 

When I practice using these six questions, I have a successful day.

Stevie Joe Payne 

The Navy Saved Me

The anniversary of the date that I raised my right hand and swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States of America and became a seventeen year old sailor in the United States Navy is March 9th. This is 2023 and that was 62 years ago and I am now 79 years of age. But I wouldn't be here without the navy. I quit school in my junior year, just after the return from the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. My girlfriend and I had had a terrible breakup, almost like a divorce, the summer before, and I was terribly hurt. And I had to see her every day in band during the school week. In every sense that I understood at that age and time, I was deeply in love with her. And I was dying inside. My grades were declining, I was driving fast, drinking beer, and with the wrong friends for me. I was in a downward spiral and headed for trouble. My grandmother, Louise Lessert, who had raised me, was dying from lung cancer and was constantly hospitalized. A friend joined the navy and Jess Paul Tomey, the big Indian, as we called him, and I went to Ponca City with Charlie Edgar just to keep him company while he completed his papers. That introduced Jess and me to the recruiter. The navy was in the back of my mind while I struggled with everything that was going on. Also, the girl and I couldn't completely separate in spite of the bad break up. I got my mother's permission to enlist and I quit school and enlisted. The discipline required of me to survive boot camp, to go on to six months in radar "A" school, and then go aboard the USS Point Defiance (LSD-31) and serve there for three years, gave me the tools I needed to survive my broken heart and screwed up life. So, the navy doesn't owe me. I owe the navy. I owe the navy a debit I can never repay. I love to hear, "Thank you for your service." But then I feel guilty because it wasn't service, it was a giant life raft that saved my life and allowed me to have so many wonderful things in my life instead of becoming the eighteen year old kid killed while driving too fast because he didn't care about living. The navy saved my life and I am so grateful that it did.

Confessions of a Cigarette Addict

 Addict. When we hear that word, we think the worst. An addict is a worn out man crawling through the streets, dirty and disheveled, seeking any means to feed his addiction. Only rescue organizations, a few friends--if any are left--police, emergency responders, and the undertaker will deal with him from now on. That’s an example, yes, and one I grew up with because the schools told us that if we tried any drug, we would become addicts and that would be our future, It’s only one in a giant collection of examples. An addict is someone who has an addiction. An addiction to what? It can be anything. It certainly is often illicit drugs, but I’d venture that it is more normally and more generally to alcohol. Also cigarettes and other tobacco products. I was addicted to cigarettes so did that make me an addict? Yes. It made me an addict. I was then, from age about 15 to age 34 an addict, unable to stop. I did stop, several times, even up to a year one time, and then made the mistake of smoking one cigarette at a New Year’s party, and soon--I was bumming, then buying, one pack at a time, then a carton (10 packs at a time). And I hated myself for the weakness that was eating me up. One time I had quit for six months and my then wife made such an earth shattering announcement that I went for a walk, and picked up a pack of Winstons (a more healthy cigarette than the strong Camels I had smoked when I was younger). She and I got through that, but it took me six months to stop that time. Something was happening though. The periods of smoking were getting shorter and the times not smoking were getting longer between lapses. I fell off of the wagon. We used to say that. And what happens when you fall off of the wagon? The wagon keeps on going---without me--without you. What’s on the wagon? Life. On the wagon are our friends, mother and father, children, brothers and sisters (I don’t like to say siblings because it’s impersonal), job, career, clean smelling clothes, clean air to breath. Also on the wagon are the grandchildren we may never get to see. The grandchildren that we will teach to be addicts may also be there, but don’t worry because they will soon join you as they fall off of the wagon in their turn. What’s not on the wagon along with you? Smoke filled clothing, hacking coughs, green or yellow mucus that we cough up and spit out first thing of the morning, COPD, lung cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer. Don’t worry though, because a cigarette will help you get past that, and you can’t have your first cup of coffee without the cigarette. I’ve known men who woke up and had the first cigarette of the day before they were even out of the bedroom. Oh wait, I’ve done that, too. It’s 46 years--yep, quit January 1, 1977-- since I smoked that last cigarette and I no longer have any urge to smoke one. But I’m so allergic to them that just brief exposure to cigarette smoke causes my nasal passages to close, and I can’t breathe. Some perfumes do that to me also, but the cigarette smoke exposure is more common. It’s more common because the addicts walk out of Quiktrip and light up before their first step is fully out of the door l, and I am caught by it. I’ve been considering having a T-shirt printed with “I have a lung disease (second line), Please don’t smoke near me”. I do have a lung disease, and whether it was caused by cigarettes or not is debatable. My last boss at Phillips Petroleum Company told me at least once a week that “there is absolutely no statistical proof that smoking cigarettes contributes to lung cancer or death.” I grieved for him when his wife died. He was addicted, she was addicted, I was addicted, and my son was addicted. Cigarettes didn’t kill him, not all by themselves, but they weakened his already diabetically challenged body and assisted in his death. He used other drugs, and he was an addict. Diabetes killed him. Everything else just contributed to it. No one wants to be an addict. There is no award for it at Commencement. No parent ever introduces their son with “This is our son John and he’s an addict. We’re very proud of that.” Why do I write this nonsense? It’s because I haven’t been courageous enough in my life. Writing, especially revealing ourselves, revealing myself to a wide audience, and to wide criticism is a desperate act in an attempt to do something courageous. When I was eighteen, I believed I could change the world. No, I didn’t, but we’re supposed to say that because we are older and we want the world to believe we had our best intentions toward it. I am 78, for a little while still, and I don’t know how much longer I will be here but if through deliberately frank and sometimes painful writing I can change one person, then I will have done something good. The one I want to change is you, if you smoke, if you are thinking about trying it. What can one cigarette hurt? Before you light that first cigarette, you are already an addict. The first cigarette just confirms it.

How Oklahoma Women Are Represented Compared to Men

 Females make up 50.45% of the Oklahoma population while males comprise 49.55%. The Oklahoma House of Representatives consists of 101 members and is the larger chamber of the bicameral Oklahoma Legislature. Women currently constitute approximately 21% of Oklahoma's legislature, a very low proportion compared to other U.S. states. (Apr 19, 2022). There are 48 seats in the Oklahoma state senate, 9 are held by women making up 19% of the Oklahoma State Senate. Females make up 50% of the population and are only 20% represented in the state legislature. Men make up 80% of the representation held in the oklahoma legislature. These are facts I have collected from Google and Wikipedia. Oklahoma is listed as a state with some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the United States. When the legislature was deciding these laws, how many women were called as witnesses to talk about women's health? How many women were interviewed who had experienced an ectopic pregnancy? How many were interviewed who lost a child during pregnancy and the dead fetus had to be surgically removed to save the woman's life? There are a combined 149 members in the Oklahoma state legislature, 30 of them, 20%, are all that ever had a uterus. Twenty percent of the Oklahoma State legislature made draconian laws that directly affect only women. Men are affected only indirectly. A male with rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, IBS, etc can be prescribed methotrexate to control these diseases. A female can not be prescribed this medication, which is also used in higher dosages in cancer treatment because it may contribute to a spontaneous abortion.

 END

 Stevie Joe Payne.

The Secret

 My first wife Connie was raised as a catholic and her mother railed against abortion. When we lost what would have been our second child, Connie's mother decided to come clean and tell her the truth. I have been promised to secrecy but everybody's dead now anyway except for a few in my generation. About 1943, Connie's mother became pregnant by her boyfriend, Bill Walling. Mary was a pregnant, unmarried catholic girl and desperate so she had an abortion. Then she became pregnant by Bill Walling a second time and they married and Mike Walling was born in 1944, a few days before my birthday. Mike and I were friends. For 35 years Mary kept that secret from everyone while preaching all the evils of abortion to her daughters. It is possible one of the sisters had an abortion but I don't know that. But Mary poisoned the minds of her daughters with religious rules that she had not followed herself and she never told the other sisters. I tell that story for one reason only. I wanted to point out the huge hypocrisy of many religious zealots who say one life while living another. Did Connie's mother's mother know about the abortion? I suspect she did because Mary and Bill didn't have the resources to accomplish it. But many war girlfriends became pregnant and were forced to have dangerous abortions because of the attitudes of society then and because a lot of these young fathers were shipped overseas and killed before they could get married.

Bettie Louise Harris

 

My mother was born out of wedlock in 1922 and adopted by Jew Max Harris and his Kaw-Osage wife Louisa Victoria Hardy. Mom was raised as a Jew until she was about 11 when Max and Louisa divorced. I never understood my mother's religious feelings until I finally understood some of her Jewish childhood in Oklahoma City. With DNA and records search I have learned that my birth grandfather was George Dewey Dye Sr. and my birth grandmother was 14 year old Nettie Rutherford. I have since been in contact with both sides of my birth grandparents' families. I began using Dye in my name, only on Facebook. I wish I could incorporate my Rutherford name too but that's impractical. I favor and support adoption because I wouldn't be here without it but it's not the only path open. Over my lifetime I've had friends who were adopted and had a miserable experience because the parents who adopted them had no business having children. So everything is ultimately a gamble. My mother had a reasonably good life but with a lot of craziness in it. A man in Pawhuska once told my brother that at one time my mother was struggling so badly that he had to buy food for us. But my mom was a great mom and hung on through all the struggles of a single mother. Remember that a single woman couldn't even get a credit card in her own name until 1974? I wish my mother were here for this mother's day because there is much left unsaid. I wish you a happy mother's day.

Letter to Ronnie

 Sometimes I listen to, or pull up and read the lyrics, of Janis Ian's great song "At Seventeen," and I regret how some kids were treated and I participated. Even if I didn't participate actively,  I stood aside and said nothing. I think of Peggy Candreia and the friendship I had with her in high school. I knew about her and it didn't bother me because I knew her, not the image of I thought a person was, or is. Sometimes I mourn over how some kids were treated, sometimes I've even cried over it. I was so marginalized myself for my eccentric life that I didn't have energy, or courage, left over to defend anyone else. But I regret not being stronger. There are few things in life that  I regret, but that is one. I think about white privilege and how it just fell upon us and how we accepted it. Never one time did we have to fight for places at the movies, in a restaurant, in a store. Never once were we told to leave because we were white. "At Seventeen" is an anthem for girls who weren't as pretty and I think about girls I didn't ask out because they weren't as pretty as Carol, Pam, Janis, Sue Nan. I also think about the girls whom I didn't feel equal to and I was afraid to ask out because I was sure they wouldn't go with me. After my divorce from Connie, I dated many women. My sales training had taught me that a rejection allowed me to move on to the next customer so I never let "no" stop me from asking women out. I began to use dating services because I wanted to avoid smokers and drinkers, so in the eight years between marriages I dated around 80 women. I actually got really tired of dating and I stopped. Charlotte and I were just friends and we expected nothing more. But I have that shallow value that I did tend to like pretty to beautiful women. So, I regret that I may have hurt a girl in school by my selfishness and every time I hear Janis Ian sing "At Seventeen" I am reminded of it, and I am punished for it.