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.