Tag Archives: Writing

Happiness, Personal Reflections, Writing

To Complain or Not to Complain: Reflections on Publishing in Academic Journals

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This is one wide-ranging perspective

I like to THINK of myself as not being a complainer, but in reality, I do my share of complaining. One of my personal goals is to complain less and thereby avoid becoming a whining old curmudgeon. That’s a tall order because for me, there are always a few particular moments and experiences when it just feels VERY GRATIFYING to let the complaints fly.

Today, I’m offering some small complaints about the process of publishing in academic journals. I’m limiting my complaining and keeping a positive tone because too much complaining would be inconsistent with my anti-curmudgeon goal AND inconsistent with my topic: publishing happiness research.

Over the past year, I’ve started working on three different happiness manuscripts. We (my research team and I) submitted the first one (Manuscript 1) to a good journal, waited 3+ months and got a rejection. The rejection was understandable, but the reviews were IMHO uninspiring and uninformed. The reviewers critiqued parts of the manuscript that were absolutely solid, raised questions about non-issues, and completely missed the biggest flaw (of which I am very familiar, because I analyzed the data). In response, because reviews should nearly always be two-way, I provided a bit of congenial feedback to Editor 1. Editor 1 responded quickly and we had a cordial and constructive email discussion.

Manuscript 1 is now out to a second unnamed journal. We’re closing in on four months and so after recovering from my CACREP virtual site visit hangover (more minor complaining here in the midst of my major complaint) and using my congenial colleague voice, I emailed Editor 2. Again, I got a speedy and pleasant response. As it turns out, academic journal editors are generally lonely people who field so many hostile emails, that they’re very chatty when they get something nice. The editor of journal 2 shared a few frustrations. I responded with commiseration, and Editor 2 let me know we should hear about our manuscript’s status by the end of the week. Just in case you’re a lonely and frustrated academic journal editor and want to steal away this manuscript and publish it before Friday, I’ve pasted the abstract below. My Email is john.sf@mso.umt.edu.   

Effects of a Brief Workshop on Counseling Student Wellness in the Age of COVID-19

Abstract

Counselors-in-training (CITs) often experience stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. Teaching counseling students wellness and positive psychology skills, particularly in the age of COVID-19, may help CITs cultivate greater well-being. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a brief happiness-oriented workshop on CIT well-being. Forty-five CITs participated in either a 2.5 hour online experiential evidence-based happiness workshop or control condition. Eight wellness-oriented self-report questionnaires were administered pre-and post-intervention. Compared with the control group, CITs who attended the online workshop reported significant reductions in depressive symptoms. At six-month follow-up, workshop participants were reported using several of the interventions (i.e., gratitude, savoring, and three good things) with themselves and in their work. Despite methodological limitations, this study provides initial evidence that a brief, online happiness workshop has promise for helping CITs cope with the emotional burdens of graduate school and COVID-19.

Manuscript 2 is based on one of my recent doctoral student’s dissertations. It’s a solid quantitative, quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest design with interesting and positive outcomes. We submitted it to a journal, waited 3 months, and then were informed that they liked the manuscript, but that it wasn’t a good fit for their journal. Being that I’ve become pretty chummy with various journal editors, I emailed the Editor using my happy voice, while also noting that it didn’t seem quite right that we waited 3 months to hear the manuscript wasn’t a good fit. We didn’t even get reviews. . . other than the editor’s mildly positive feedback. Editor 3 got right back to me and essentially agreed with my concerns and shared frustrations about journal editor and editorial board transitions. Just in case you’re tracking the pattern, it appears that academic journal editors are super into professional email exchanges. After getting Manuscript 2 rejected, I decided to start pre-emailing journal editors to check to see if the topic is a good fit for their journals. The responses have been fast and helpful. If by chance, you’re a fancy journal editor who’s feeling frustrated and wants a colleague like me for some email chats, you could increase your chances of hearing from me if you contact me and offer to publish Manuscript 2 . . . and so here’s the abstract.

Effects of a Multi-Component Positive Psychology Course on College Student Mental Health and Well-Being During COVID-19

Abstract

Even before COVID-19, college student mental health was an escalating problem. As a supplement to traditional counseling, positive psychology (aka happiness) courses have shown promise for improving college student well-being. We evaluated a unique, four-component positive psychology course on student mental health and wellness outcomes. Using a quantitative, quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest design, we compared the effects of the happiness course (n = 38) with an alternative class control condition (n = 41), on eight different mental health and well-being measures. Participants who completed the happiness course reported significantly higher positive affect, increased hope, better physical health, and greater perceived friendship support. In a post-hoc analysis of six happiness class participants who scored as severely depressed at pretest, all six had substantial reductions in self-reported depressive symptoms at posttest. Multicomponent positive psychology courses are a promising supplementary strategy for addressing college student mental health.

I know you’re probably wondering now, about Manuscript 3, which is under construction. The bottom line for Manuscript 3 is that it’s fabulous. Of course, because I haven’t submitted it anywhere yet, I’m the only reviewer offering feedback at this time. Manuscript 3 is the sort of manuscript that, I’m sure, a number of journals and journal editors will get in a bidding war over.

In the end, complaining is mostly unhealthy. Complaining can be like noxious weeds, with the negativity taking root, and spreading into areas where we should be staying positive and grateful. Too much complaining contributes to a sour disposition and outlook. On the positive side, complaining offers an opportunity for emotional ventilation, and can recruit interpersonal commiseration, both of which feel good. But IMHO the biggest potential benefit from complaining comes from social feedback. When people hear you complain, they can provide perspective. And yes, we all need perspective.

Happy Wednesday to everyone! May your complaints be minor and your perspective be multidimensional.

JSF

Personal Reflections, Writing

The Art of The Email

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Most of my life involves emailing.

Most of the time I take irrational pride in my emails. I work very hard to eliminate typos and grammatical problems. I also work very hard to give my emails just the right touch of snark and hilarity.

My goal is to send literary emails. I keep waiting for someone to publish them. Something like the Freud-Jung letters. But alas, no one has offered, and so, once again, I have to be the responsible party and do the right thing and publish them here.

My emails are in italics; the introduction to each email is not in italics.

  1. To an academic friend from Xavier University who wrote to me to share one of his student’s complaints about the fact that we said something positive about Paul-Michel Foucault in our Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories textbook:

Anyhow, I guess I’ll be cancelling Foucault in the future. I checked online, and the dude was a bad sexual predator creep. If it seems appropriate, offer my apologies to your student. It’s tough to stay up on all the idiotic creeps out there. When I read about them, I can’t figure out where they found the time to act out on all their stupid sexual perversions. Well, obviously, that’s not the only question I have . . .

2. To a former student who had the audacity to suggest she could beat me at games like Charades/Pictionary/Balderdash/Cards Against Humanity:

As someone who is a trained observer of human insecurities, I think you should know that when someone (like, let’s say, you) writes something like “You telling me you’ve never lost those games means nothing. . .” it’s a clear indication that whatever that person (like, let’s say, you) is writing about “means something.” You may be familiar with the protesting too much line from William S. . . . and he may have, indeed, been speaking of thou-est defense mechanisms.

If I cry during our upcoming competition, it will be from glee and not mushrooms or your game-playing domination fantasies.

Is the idea of using your corpse as a scarecrow an unusual idea? I’ve been away from human contact for so long that I’m not sure of what’s normal and what’s not and therefore take no personal responsibility for the normality of whatever I’m writing.

3. To the same former student (see above) who for some reason wrote to me about being open to being taxidermied after death and placed as a “greeter” on our porch:

You’re always so full of good ideas that I’m not sure what I can add. Back in the 20th century, we had a life-sized Jean Luc Picard cardboard cut-out that we kept on our porch to greet visitors. Should I outlive you, I’d be honored to keep your taxidermy self in our garden. Right now, Rita is writing about mushroom-based caskets as an alternative that results in quick biodegradation. We could put your likeness in a mushroom patch and then you might melt into the ground.

I probably should stop with all my good ideas now.

4. To an attorney who’s helping me with the details of a legal contract:

I’m glad to hear we’re outside the boundaries of HIPAA. One of my life goals is to pretty much always stay outside the boundaries of HIPAA. That’s why, when I ask people for their vaccination status, I also tell them I won’t be billing their insurance😊.

5. To a former student and professional counselor:

No one other than you would ever think to begin an email message with a statement about unmanned robot lawnmowers. I’d ask you about what you’re reading in your spare time, but I’m worried for what I might hear.

6. To my fellow faculty, when I forward them information I received from our national accrediting body:

Hi All,

I haven’t looked at this myself, but it seemed like I should pass it on.

7. To my Fall, 2021 Research class:

Hello Prospective Researchers,

It’s June, and anyone with any sense is thinking about the COUN 545 Research class right about now. Haha. Not really. I’m just procrastinating on other things.

I’m writing because I had emailed a few of you before saying that I would likely NOT be teaching the Research class . . . however . . . the excellent, very good news is that I WILL BE teaching the Research class. The plan is for us to be live, in-person, and following whatever health guidelines the University has in place for fall semester. I know, the good news just won’t stop.

I just wanted to clarify what’s happening and dispel any rumors and let you know in advance that we’ll be having the best research class experience ever.

More stuff will come your way (like a syllabus) in late July or early August. Until then, you should start systematically collecting data wherever you go and whatever you’re doing (sorry, more research jokes there, no need to do that).

Seriously, until then, you should have a fantastic summertime.

That’s all for now. And you all should have a fantastic June weekend!

John S-F

Cool Counseling, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Suicide Assessment and Intervention, Writing

Working in the Cognitive Dimension

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Today I’ve been putting together my powerpoints for the upcoming Nate Chute Foundation workshop. The NCF workshop is on two consecutive Tuesday evenings, starting this coming Tuesday.

While reviewing content for the ppts, I tried to pull all the intervention strategies from my brain, and failed. My excuse is that there are too many possible interventions for my small brain to memorize. As a consequence, I was forced to check out the “Practitioner Guidance and Key Points to Remember” sections at the end of all the intervention chapters. To give you a taste, here’s a photo of the “summary” page at the end of the cognitive chapter.

The Cognitive Dimension – Chapter Summary

Each of these bulleted items represents a potential method or strategy for intervening in the cognitive dimension with clients or students who are experiencing suicidality. I’m looking forward to talking about these strategies at the Nate Chute workshop, but rather than trying to commit them to memory (like Ebbinghaus would have), I’ll be using my powerpoint slides as a memory aid.

I hope you’re all having a great Sunday night.

John SF

Cool Counseling, Parenting, Writing

The Book . . . Again

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Just for fun, here’s a photo of a page from our Suicide Assessment and Treatment Planning book. This page is the lead in to a section that focuses in on how to work with clients who are suicidal, but whom also may be naturally also experiencing irritability, hostility, and hopelessness. For info, go to the publisher, ACA: https://imis.counseling.org/store/detail.aspx?id=78174

Suicide Assessment and Intervention, Writing

Three ways for dealing with Annoying Blog Posts

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Just a heads up. I’ll be writing several posts about our new book this week. Be forewarned, these posts may be annoying. Annoying can happen when people feel enthusiastic. My apologies in advance.

In response to these upcoming posts from me (or annoying posts from others), you can apply one of three strategies.

  • You can respond with positive affirmation, sharing, and by empathically matching my enthusiasm. Keep in mind that positive affirmation may make me happy. The downside is you risk reinforcing my “new book posting” behavior.
  • You can respond with no response. That was a favored B.F. Skinner and Ivan Pavlov strategy. Think of it as putting me on a pain-free extinction schedule.
  • You can respond with negativity or punishment. Skinner, Adler, and child advocates oppose punishment, because punishment can backfire, causing undesired behavior to increase, or triggering erratic behaviors.

True confession: When reading offensive or annoying posts, sometimes, even though I know better, I give into temptation, and respond with negativity. That’s nearly always a bad idea, mostly because option #3 of the preceding list is a poor extinction strategy. In one recent study, when social media posts received highere numbers of negative responses, the original social media posters responded back with even more posts. In other words, attention—even negative attention—acts as positive reinforcement and often increases the behavior toward which it was aimed. The take-home message is that, generally speaking, if you want to extinguish annoying blog posting behavior, following Skinner’s and Pavlov’s advice makes for good behavioral strategy.

Although I’m wary of the possibility of you all putting me on an extinction schedule, below is an excerpt from the Preface of our fancy new book. Right now the book is only available on the publisher’s website (https://imis.counseling.org/store/detail.aspx?id=78174), but I suspect it will soon make its way over to Amazon and the rest of the booksellers.

Preface

Writing a book about suicide may not have been our best idea ever. Rita made the point more than once that reading and writing about suicide at the depth necessary to write a helpful book can affect one’s mood in a downward direction. She was right, of course. Her rightness inspired us to pay attention to the other side of the coin, so we decided to integrate positive psychology and the happiness literature into this book. As is often the case when grappling with matters of humanity, focusing on suicide led us to a deeper understanding of suicide’s complementary dialectic, a meaningful and fully-lived life, and that has been a very good thing.

Before diving into these pages, please consider the following.

Do the Self-Care Thing

            In the first chapter, we strongly emphasize how important it is to practice self-care when working with clients who are suicidal. Immersing ourselves in the suicide literature required a balancing focus on positive psychology and wellness. While you’re reading this book and exploring suicide, you cannot help but be emotionally impacted, and we cannot overstate the importance of you taking care of yourself throughout this process and into the future. You are the instrument through which you provide care for others . . . and so we highly encourage you to repeatedly do the self-care thing.

What is the Strengths-Based Approach?

            Many people have asked, “What on earth do you mean by a strengths-based approach to suicide assessment and treatment planning?” In response, we usually meander in and out of various bullet points, relational dynamics, assessment procedures, and try to emphasize that the approach is more than just strengths-based, it’s also wellness-oriented and holistic. By strengths-based, we mean that we recognize and nurture the existing and potential strengths of our clients. By wellness-oriented we mean that we believe in incorporating wellness activities into counseling and life. By holistic we mean that we focus on emotional, cognitive, interpersonal, physical, cultural-spiritual, behavioral, and contextual dimensions of living.

You will find the following strengths-based, wellness-oriented, and holistic principles woven into every chapter of this book.

  1. Historically, suicide ideation has been socially constructed as sinful, illegal, or a terribly frightening and bad illness. In contrast, we believe suicide ideation is a normal variation on human experience that typically stems from difficult environmental circumstances and excruciating emotional pain. Rather than fear client disclosures of suicidality, we welcome these disclosures because they offer an opportunity to connect deeply with distressed clients and provide therapeutic support.
  2. Although we believe risk factors, warning signs, protective factors, and suicide assessment instruments are important, we value relationship connections with clients over predictive formulae and technical procedures.
  3. We believe trust, empathy, collaboration, and rapport will improve the reliability, validity, and utility of data gathered during assessments. Consequently, we embrace the principles of therapeutic assessment.
  4. We believe that counseling practitioners need to ask directly about and explore suicide ideation using a normalizing frame or other sophisticated and empathic interviewing strategies.
  5. We believe traditional approaches to suicide assessment and treatment are excessively oriented toward psychopathology. To compensate for this pathology-orientation, we explicitly value and ask about clients’ positive experiences, personal strengths, and coping strategies.
  6. We believe the narrow pursuit of psychopathology causes clinicians to neglect a more complete assessment and case formulation of the whole person. To compensate, we use a holistic, seven-dimensional model to create a broader understanding of what’s hurting and what’s helping in each individual client’s life. 
  7. We value the positive emphasis of safety planning and coping skills development over the negative components of no-suicide contracts and efforts to eliminate suicidal thoughts.

Happiness, Personal Reflections, Writing

Goodbye 2020 . . . You’re Nothing but History Now

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Happy New Year!

As a method for putting 2020 behind me and focusing on a hopeful 2021, I engaged in some forward thinking (rather unusual for me) and wrote an op-ed piece for the Missoulian newspaper to be published TODAY! Below, I’ve pasted the beginning of the article, along with a link to the whole darn thing in the Missoulian. If you feel so moved, please share and like this. . . and I hope you experience the return of happiness in 2021.

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The Return of Happiness: Your 2021 Guide

Usually a great source of snarky humor, the Urban Dictionary lists its top definition for 2020 as, “The worst year ever.” Sadly, even the Urban Dictionary couldn’t find creative inspiration from the horrors of 2020. Goodbye, 2020; you will not be missed.

. . . for the rest of the article, click below:

https://missoulian.com/opinion/columnists/the-return-of-happiness-your-2021-guide/article_b513a4aa-a644-5dd6-8cd2-c6c23f7a1f83.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share

Personal Reflections, Writing

In This Sacred Hour . . .

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Yesterday, for Halloween, I dressed up as agitation. I wasn’t alone. Everywhere I went, everyone I saw, and around every corner, I encountered agitation. Maybe it was herd mentality. But no one developed immunity.

This too shall pass, and it did. Last night I took a deep breath and exhaled, slowly. And then like all the best Yogis, I lingered on the outbreath. My costume, all the layers of agitation, melted away onto the floor, into the carpet, down through the flooring, seeping back to the earth where agitation can rest.

Today is my favorite day; a day to throw myself into the gift of an extra, socially constructed, sacred hour. In stark contrast to all my previous years on the planet, today I plan to stay here—in this sacred hour—all day.

Having fallen back, no matter how long in coming, this particular hour arrives with surprise. What shall I do in this dark hour before dawn? Shall I spend it now, or wait and spend it with Rita on a walk up the river. Which hour of this 24 will be my sacred, extravagant, unexpected hour?

Every year, I’ve rushed into this gift. Anticipating its disappearance even before it appears, I’ve tried squeezing enough productivity into one arbitrary hour to compensate for my perpetual time management problems. But this is a new year, a new day, and a new hour, and, after shedding my agitation costume, I now see peace. It’s a bumpy peace, much like the washboard road to East Rosebud Lake. We may get rattled, but we shall arrive.

What I’d never discerned before is that the sacred hour is an illusion. Like many things, the sacred hour was created out of nothing but time for someone’s convenience and instead of recognizing its nothingness, I’ve tried to grab it, wrestle it to the ground, and suck out its imaginary nutrients. Year after year, I’ve mulled its significance and then experienced angst over how to spend it. As I do with Mary Oliver’s query, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do. With your one wild and precious life?” I’ve demurred. The question is too big. Everything will eventually vanish, and if I choose one thing I’ll be left with only one companion: my own judgmental vengeance.

Peaceful, deep breathing is almost always about the outbreath. Fancy meditators and Yoga practitioners coach us to pace our breathing, and then to extend the outbreath into the place of no-breath. Oddly, the place of no-breath is the place of life and peace, if only for snippets at a time. While being still, without breathing, for a second or three or six before the in-breath comes again, the body’s physiology slows down, nearly halting in parasympathetic bliss. In the sacred space of the outbreath, peace happens in the body, and when peace happens in the body it can—with practice—transfer little seedlings of peace to the mind. The common admonishment, “Remember to breathe” is less profound than its uncommon sister: “Remember to not breathe.” Remember to let yourself extend your peace for a bit longer than usual today. Remember to be with peace tomorrow. Especially, remember to mingle with peace on Tuesday. You know why.

Today’s brief illumination is that there’s nothing special and nothing especially sacred about this extra hour. But also, like all hours, there’s everything special and sacred about this extra hour. It’s just another hour that, along with its pesky minutes and seconds, was simply created for the convenience of counting.  

I’ll probably forget all this by Tuesday, but for today, I see every hour is a collaborative creation. Every hour we get to return to the beginning, resetting our intentions, and refocusing on the mystery of what is and what might be.  

Tuesday, Wednesday, and beyond will bring as many sacred hours as we can count. How shall we spend those hours? For me, I hope we can collectively linger with our outbreaths on Tuesday as we begin, together and again, to build peace, reclaim justice, embrace empathy, and restore democracy . . . one bumpy and sacred hour at a time.

Happiness, Personal Reflections, Writing

This Week’s Happiness Homework . . . Acts of Kindness . . . from the University of Montana

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This is the assignment for my happiness students at the University of Montana. Check it out.

About a decade or two ago, the concept, “Random acts of kindness” gained traction. Now, about a decade or two later, I’m a little sad that random acts of kindness has become the most common way we talk about kindness. I say this despite the fact that I’m a big fan of randomness.

For your assignment this week, I’d like all of us to break away from the randomness mentality and embrace intentionality.

Intentional acts give us—as actors in the grand theater of life—greater agency. Instead of being stuck with a script someone else wrote, when we embrace intentionality, we become the author of every scene. Rather than randomly responding to opportunities with kindness, we can exert our will. What this means is that when an opportunity for kindness pops up, we already have a plan . . . and that plan involves creatively finding a way to respond with kindness. How cool is that?

Let’s think about this together.

Toward whom would you like to demonstrate kindness? A stranger? If so, it might feel random in that you might act kind in a moment of spontaneity. But your spontaneity—although wonderful—is a moment when your intentionality (to be a person who acts with kindness) meets opportunity. In this way, even acts toward strangers that seem or feel spontaneous, will be acts that reflect your deeper values and character.

Maybe you’d like to intentionally be kind to a friend, a parent, or a sibling. Again, this requires thought and planning and the ability to step outside yourself. Assuming that others want what you want can backfire. You’ll need to step into another person’s world: What would your friend, parent, or sibling appreciate?

To stay with the theater metaphor, you’re the script-writer and you’ve written yourself into this performance. For this week, the script or plan includes a character who values kindness and who watches for opportunities to share that value with others. You’re that character.

Your job is to translate your kind character into kind action. I don’t what that will look like for you. Maybe you don’t either. That’s the magic—where opportunity meets planned spontaneity.

Your other job is to write a summary of this experience (100 to 300 words) to Dan and me and to post it in the correct Moodle destination.

Have a fabulous week!

John SF

This is a photo of the James River in Richmond, Virginia this past Sunday evening.

James River Richmond

 

 

Personal Reflections, Politics, Writing

The Day the GOP Died

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Mad Bomb

There’s a new song on the internet. An appalling remake of an old song.  Aside from making me depressed when I’m working on happiness, listening to the new song reminded me of an old blog post I wrote in June, 2018. I used words and imagery from Don McLean’s American Pie to write of my disappointment with the GOP. Although I submitted this piece to a few news outlets, there was only one taker: Me. That makes sense because I almost always publish my own blog posts.

Skip this if you’re sick of political stuff.

The Day the GOP Died

By John Sommers-Flanagan, Ph.D.

A long, long time ago, the Grand Old Party stood for family values, moral standards, and apple pie. Now, with Trump as leader, it’s more like family torture, infidelity, and borscht.

Less long ago (Thursday, May 31, 2018), former House Speaker John Boehner quipped: “The Republican Party is kinda taking a nap somewhere.” Boehner was drinking a bloody Mary at the time, so maybe we shouldn’t blame him for not noticing that his former party’s nap has already lasted nearly two years.

Given there’s no chance the GOP will get woke, it’s time to say, “Bye, bye American GOP.”

The GOP was mortally wounded on a Super Tuesday back in September, 2016. In seven states, the Party of Lincoln voted to nominate Donald Trump for President. Sure, “Lying Ted” won a couple states and a few #NeverTrump folks were hanging on, but the die was cast, probably in some Trump casino, where the GOP’s mortal soul was traded for unlimited gaming opportunities. No longer was the GOP about marriage, civility, and moral virtue. Instead, along with Trump, so-called Republicans were embracing race over rights, disrespecting gold star families, degrading and sexualizing women, and undermining family values. And there was that White Nationalism thing. His crown stolen, Lincoln would have been apoplectic.

Resuscitation attempts failed. The Access Hollywood recording created a ripple of discontent and the gnashing of a tooth or two. But hey, it was locker room talk, and everyone knew who had the votes and who had the money. Jeff Flake and “Liddle Bob Corker” gave us hope, but our hope quickly gave way to calling respectful Black football players sons of bitches and making parents cry and children scream. Opposing Trump was too costly. Not only would there be hate mail, hate email, hate instant messages, and hate signs posted on your lawn, there would also be death threats, lost fundraising revenue, and lost elections. Republicans like balanced budgets. Opposing Trump did not pencil. #NotWorthIt. DJT would refuse to yield.

Later, the GOP voted that a generation lost in debt was preferable to confronting their friendship with the devil. Obsequious coveting of the naked emperor became de rigueur. Satanity laughed at tweets about pig’s blood, shitholes, and witch hunts. Fox News had spoken.

Even later, or perhaps earlier, there was Russian meddling, references to Rocket Man, and about 50 departures from the White House staff or cabinet. Going along, the GOP normalized talk about sex, presidential lies, and fantasized audio recordings. There were payments to porn stars, pay to play with China and Indonesia, and open theft of our national morality, with Trump metaphorically riding away in a taxpayer paid for golden golf-cart. The evangelicals were copiously ignoring the growing cracks in their church bells.

Mostly the GOP lay in a Boehner-nap, awakening only briefly for intermittent nips of bloody Marys and rye. A few free market optimists imagined the GOP was saving its strength for one last-ditch effort to #DumpTrump. But, right about then, because the three politicians I admired most were already dead anyway, the rest of the GOP joined them. The Republican Party, upon whom we could formerly count for at least a façade of morality, had its thousand points of light torn away like a Puerto Rican roof. Final confirmation of the GOP’s death occurred in July with continuing news from the Mexico border that made us shiver. John McCain’s angel was in a body cast, because he was “Dying anyway.”

The GOP, having given away its moral authority to speechless speakers, vapid veeps, and the money man, is no longer grand, no longer old, and no longer alive. The Party of Lincoln is dead. Let’s drive our Harleys to the coast and pray that the Party of Trump is short-lived.

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John Sommers-Flanagan is a clinical psychologist, professor of counselor education at the University of Montana, and author of eight books. The views expressed here are solely the views of John Sommers-Flanagan, and not representative of the University of Montana or Don McLean.

And here’s the youtube link for the new song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQPeVJQaUSw

 

Personal Reflections, Politics, Writing

In My Great and Unmatched Wisdom

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One Wipe Charlies

In my great and unmatched wisdom I hereby proclaim that today is Opposite Day.

Never mind that Opposite Day is a fictional children’s holiday and that it’s officially celebrated on January 25. Just because today’s not January 25 and I’m not a child, doesn’t mean I don’t get to say opposite things. I get to say opposite things because I’ve said I get to say opposite things.

When my nephews were little, we never waited for Opposite Day. Instead, we’d suddenly start playing the Opposite Game. It’s just like Opposite Day, but spontaneous. We’d say hello when we meant goodbye. I’d say things like, “Tommy, you’re the smartest person I know!” Or, “Paul, you’re one good looking guy.” I was totally hilarious, maybe the funniest uncle ever to exist on planet Earth.

Sometimes our spontaneous opposite games got a little out of control, but that was the point. One time, when grandma showed up and Tommy and Paul rolled their eyes and said, “It’s terrible to not see you” she looked hurt. We had to call time-out and explain the game to her. Even after the explanation, she didn’t seem to get it.

Funny thing, even when you’re playing at saying things that are the opposite of the truth, sometimes people don’t catch on. People get confused. For example, if the media happened to be listening to us, they might get confused and literally report things we said, even though we meant the opposite. That’s especially funny. When that happens, whether it’s by accident or on purpose, the correct response is to say, “I was only joking.”

After a while, if you intermittently play the Opposite game and mix it with being normal, people won’t know when to take you seriously and when to not take you seriously. For example, the other day I made a phone call, it was a perfect phone call. I said, “Hey dude, I’ll bring you over some of that medicinal plant you’re needing for nausea. It really sucks to feel sick, and I want to help. I’d like you to do me a favor though. If you could spontaneously give my boss a call and tell him how much you appreciate my great and unmatched wisdom, that would be nice.”

To be certain that I’d communicated perfectly, I ended the conversation by saying, “I’m only joking you know. I’m quite the humorist. Never mind what I said before. You look really good today.”

The best thing about being in charge of the opposite game is that it keeps everybody else off balance. In comparison, I’m always on my game, because I’m the only one who knows when the opposite game rules are in effect. Sometimes I forget whether I’m playing the opposite game or not. Hey, not really. You and I both know I’m the most self-aware and evolved person ever to inhabit the planet. Me forgetting? Not possible. Or, maybe it’s possible, but I’d never forget the important things.

I remember how me being in charge of the opposite game worked with my nephews. At the end of the day, sometimes I’d hug them and yell, “I hate you.” They knew what I really meant.

Oh, and BTW. Thanks for reading this. I value you as a person and I hope you love yourself. You know one thing that might help. If you’d just keep this blog post to yourself. Don’t share it. Seriously. I’m joking.