Shadenfreude is a German word used to describe the act of taking pleasure in the pain or misfortune of another. It is derived from two words, schaden which means to damage or do harm, and freude which means joy.

Schadenfreude (SHOD.n.froy.duh).

It’s a funny word to read, its even funnier to say, but how much fun can you really have, how much joy can you truly experience, how much satisfaction can you actually get, when it comes as a direct result of someone else’s bad deal?

Every time that you eagerly wait, that you silently pray, pretending while hoping that “the day will soon come” and that “the fall will be hard”, something sacred gets compromised. The kind of pleasure that we pinch or fun that we forge; that kind of undercover good time that we reserve for private consumption is counterfeit because it comes as a direct result of knowing that someone else has been brought back down to earth. Taking that kind of pleasure is easy and it’s fleeting and it’s cheap. And, in the end, it is an act that diminishes everyone.

I used my wedding as an opportunity to try and really hurt my dad.

My parents divorced when I was in Junior High and, it would be fair to say that, my father wasn’t really around much after that. The hardest part of it all was being unable to reconcile what it was about me that didn’t captivate him for more than twenty minutes over the phone, once or twice a year. No matter what kind of grades that I got or how many contests I won or how loud they clapped at my recitals, about twenty minutes, once or twice a year, was all that I was gonna get.

But then,

he said “yes” to my wedding, and so…

I would secretly make up scenarios in my mind about assigning my father a seat on the sidelines with the rest of the observers. I would imagine how blindsided he would feel when forced to watch my mother walk me down the aisle and give me away. Wouldn’t that be the justifiable way to respond to the person who always used to make me cry? All I wanted to do was show him how much he had hurt my feelings and return the favor by hurting his.

And so,

my mother played both parents on my wedding day and performed the duties that every little girl imagines her father will one day, and I pretended not to be hoping that my father would be feeling profound and irreversible regret.

Imagine.

I wanted my dad to be sorry that he missed my high school graduation. I wanted him to see that I was pretty and I wanted him to wonder if Father’s Day, for me, was hard. I wanted him to beg me for mercy, to ask for my forgiveness while being swept away by the floods of remorse, but none of that makes what I did okay.

Now when I look back, I am obliged to wonder if I had succeeded that day in causing him significant shame. Looking back, I am not at all proud of myself for what I did.

Perhaps I had a legitimate bone to pick, but what I failed to consider at the time is that, implicit in the act of extending an invitation is the recognition of a special level of trust that absolutely must be appreciated and handled with care. I believe that I could have picked another time. I believe that I could have found a better way. I believe that true joy or real pleasure can never be experienced when it comes attached as a rider to someone else’s misfortune, discomfort or pain.

And,

I absolutely believe that Schadenfreude is really just an undercover act that we engage in when we are unwilling to make the effort to take the high road.

And you?

Something sacred gets compromised every time we choose to allow ourselves to pinch a little pleasure out of someone else’s pain. It’s a counterfeit experience and we usually keep it to ourselves, while  real pleasure and true joy are meant to be shared by those who foster goodwill, in appreciation of the privilege that it is to openly celebrate life.

Dana

It happened at Disneyland.

In a single moment, I realized that I had bitten off way more than I could chew and I discovered an ironic truth in the process:

Sometimes you have to let go in order to hang on and make it through.

As we approached Space Mountain, I took a long deep breath, fully expecting that the extra air would magically build my self confidence. It did.

Gussie was seven years old when we decided to fulfill our parental obligation by including a day at Euro Disney as part of our visit to Paris. Most of her friends had already participated in this right of passage and so we conceded, realizing that we had put it off for as long as we should.

As I looked upward in an attempt to fully assess the risk involved, I had to take another long deep breath to dismiss the accusation that “roller coasters are not at all my thing” and to ignore the harassing desire to be sitting in a quaint café, eating a croissant.

Having successfully convinced myself that we were about to have a good time, I strapped myself in next to Gussie. Auguste rode in the car just behind. Gussie was revved up and excited. I grabbed her and dutifully held her tight, nervous AND now determined to conquer Space Mountain.

It was smooth sailing at first, which tempted me to feel a little bit silly for ever having been afraid in the first place when all of a sudden my world was literally turned upside down! When it turned right side up again, a voice inside my chest screamed “Uncle!” but before I could even finish hearing it, we were upside down again. “What day of the week is this?” I thought. I couldn’t even remember my name. That’s when Gussie slipped from my grip and as I glimpsed her little face out of the corner of my eye I remember thinking, “Every man for himself!”

Wow. It was now that kind of game.

What do you do when you find yourself in the middle of something that you courageously convinced yourself you could handle, only to discover that you have no idea how to get yourself out of this one alive? What do you say to yourself? How do you cope?

Hanging there upside down I felt helpless and completely out of control. I wanted to be there for Gussie, but she was now on her own. I hoped that Auguste would survive but that was his problem, not mine.

“When is this ride going to end?!”

I have always counted on the fact that I could find an answer to any problem. I have always relied on my ability to hustle up a way to get from “A” to “B”. But here, on Space Mountain, there was no answer I could find and no hustle that would save the day. There wasn’t a lesson I had learned that I could draw from or a friend that I could call to talk me through.

Hanging upside down on Space Mountain all I had were regrets. All I wanted was to get off. But all I could do was be still. All I could do was “let go” and reassure myself that “this too shall pass”. This time I had no choice but to surrender in exchange for the possibility of expanding my capacity to -

Trust.

And you?

When life offers you the opportunity to escape the comfort of your safety zone, will you dare? When it gets tough and you get scared, will you let go and trust that everyone and everything will be O.K.?

We got off of Space Mountain in one piece and I’m sure that one day I will take that ride again because I believe that life should be thrilling. I believe that as long as I am alive, I might as well live — crystal clear that if I dare, there will be days when my world will be turned upside down and I’ll hear that desperate voice inside my chest cry “Uncle” again.

Is life worth living if you don’t Risk? Is it possible to Risk and not trust?

Dana

Those puppies were cute and they definitely got our attention.

And,

we weren’t the only ones.

Auguste and I were among the people that kept stopping at the table where the woman was sitting with the two sad-eyed puppies asking for donations. Without even thinking I put a loose dollar from my pocket in the jar.

As I scanned the table for any literature that would answer my questions about where the puppies might end up, I noticed that the jar had a United Homeless Organization sticker on it where I expected to see a logo from the ASPCA or PETA or some other organization that helps save dogs and cats. There was no literature about animals or anything for that matter that would support this woman’s suggestion that she was raising money for an animal shelter while trying to find these puppies a good home.

So,

I decided to simply ask:

“Are the dogs up for adoption”?

Her answer was nervous and didn’t really make a lot of sense and —

it was clear to me as we walked away that she was using the puppies as a distraction to raise money for herself. She was homeless.

It was obvious to Auguste that experience had taught this woman that perhaps people are more willing to part with a loose dollar for a sad eyed puppy than they are for a woman who is struggling and without a place to live.

It was sad for both of us to reconcile the harshness of that reality.

As a nation, we recognize July 4th, 1776 as the beginning of our independence. But, it was not until September 3, 1783 that The Treaty of Paris was signed between Britain and America providing the recognition of American independence. It was not until 1783 that the British finally conceded that America was in fact, free.

So, technically, on July Fourth 1776, the United States of America was not free at all, really. In 1776, according to the circumstances, America was still under British dominion. Americans still made and spent British money. British soldiers still patrolled the colonies, still in charge. The official church was still the Church of England. King George was still the BOSS.

But the founding fathers refused to rely on what the circumstances told them was true. Instead, they chose to be bold and to declare independence even if it seemed unpopular, impossible, unlikely to achieve. The United States of America lived free as of July Fourth 1776, because of their declaration, that it was so.

The founding fathers of the United States of America lived by the word of their mouth as free and Independent for seven years and then in 1783, it finally came to pass.

I do give Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Hancock and the rest, credit. I give them credit — but, I have to admit that I struggle as I do.

On the one had, it was pretty courageous, optimistic and bold to take the stand for independence that they took. On the other hand they took that stand for independence while –

denying others the very freedom they desired for themselves; the very freedom they proposed as a founding principle for the United States of America.

Slavery is still the difficult truth that America has yet to fully embrace as part of its original legacy. To recognize and celebrate The Fourth of July without some kind of an acknowledgment that, at one time, not everybody in America was allowed to live free, is to ignore the entire truth and the full reality of what the holiday could be all about, and it severely undermines the possibility for America to finally move beyond. To include that undeniable bit of our history, as part of the story that we tell once a year, would be yet another pretty courageous, optimistic and bold stand for independence, indeed.

Shadenfreude is a German word used to describe the act of taking pleasure in the pain or misfortune of another. It is derived from two words, schaden which means to damage or do harm, and freude which means joy.

Schadenfreude (SHOD-n-froy-duh).

It’s a funny word to read, its even funnier to say, but how much fun can you really have, how much joy can you truly experience, how much satisfaction can you actually get, when it comes as a direct result of someone else’s bad deal?

Every time that you eagerly wait, that you silently pray, pretending while hoping that “the day will soon come” and that “the fall will be hard” — something sacred gets compromised. The kind of pleasure that we pinch or fun that we forge; that kind of undercover good time that we reserve for private consumption is counterfeit because it comes as a direct result of knowing that someone else has been brought back down to earth. Taking that kind of pleasure is easy and it’s fleeting and it’s cheap. And, in the end, it is an act that diminishes -

everyone.

I used my wedding as an opportunity to try and really hurt my dad.

My parents divorced when I was in Junior High and, it would be fair to say that, my father wasn’t really around much after that. The hardest part of it all was being unable to reconcile what it was about me that didn’t captivate him for more than twenty minutes over the phone, once or twice a year. No matter what kind of grades that I got or how many contests I won or how loud they clapped at my recitals, about twenty minutes, once or twice a year, was all that I was gonna get.

But then,

he said “yes” to my wedding, and so…

I would secretly make up scenarios in my mind about assigning my father a seat on the sidelines with the rest of the observers. I would imagine how blindsided he would feel when forced to watch my mother walk me down the aisle and give me away. Wouldn’t that be the justifiable way to respond to the person who always used to make me cry? All I wanted to do was show him how much he had hurt my feelings and return the favor by -

hurting his.

And so,

my mother played both parents on my wedding day and performed the duties that every little girl imagines her father will one day, and I pretended not to be hoping that my father would be feeling profound and irreversible regret.

Imagine.

I wanted my dad to be sorry that he missed my high school graduation. I wanted him to see that I was pretty and I wanted him to wonder if Father’s Day, for me, was hard. I wanted him to beg me for mercy, to ask for my forgiveness while being swept away by the floods of remorse, but none of that makes what I did okay.

Now when I look back, I am obliged to wonder if I had succeeded that day in causing him significant shame. Looking back, I am not at all proud of myself for what I did.

Perhaps I had a legitimate bone to pick, but what I failed to consider at the time is that, implicit in the act of extending an invitation is the recognition of a special level of trust that absolutely must be appreciated and handled with care. I believe that I could have picked another time. I believe that I could have found a better way. I believe that that true joy or real pleasure can never be experienced when it comes attached as a rider to someone else’s misfortune, discomfort or pain.

And -

I absolutely believe that Schadenfreude is really just an undercover act that we engage in when we are unwilling to make the effort to take the high road.

And you?

Something sacred gets compromised every time we choose to allow ourselves to pinch a little pleasure out of someone else’s pain. It’s a counterfeit experience and we usually keep it to ourselves, while –

real pleasure and true joy are meant to be shared by those who foster goodwill, in appreciation of the privilege that it is to openly celebrate life.

Dana

I don’t think that —

God has a political party affilliation.

Do you?

I can’t imagine that God desires His Perfect Peace, His Perfect Love, His Perfect Harmony exclusively for some and not others.

Does He prefer rich people to poor people?

I have a hard time believing that He roots for this world leader over that world leader.

Don’t you?

No one has a corner on the market when it comes to GOD!!

No one does.

I don’t think that God likes me better than he likes you.

I think that’s what makes Him —

God.

They have this tradition. They call it Sweet Friday.

Every Friday they put together a casual spread of cakes, cookies and whatever sweet goodies that they might pick up at the market on the way home from after a busy week.

They put a table cloth on the table. It doesn’t matter that the table cloth is often wrinkled. They surround the center piece with the tasty treats. The centerpiece always coincides with the time of year - a pumpkin, a wreath, a vase filled with flowers - and then they welcome friends and neighbors to stop whatever it is that they are doing for just thirty minutes or so to come and have a little something sweet.

I heard this story on NPR the other day and it touched me. I love little rituals and I’m faithful to my own traditions because I like being able to look forward to things. But that’s not what touched me about this story.

What touched me about this particular story is that -

A mother of four kids, ranging in ages from four to ten, working to put herself through medical school while going through a painful divorce, would carve out time every week so that she and her children can make happy memories.

What touches me about this story is that what those children will remember along with the hurt and confusion of their parents splitting up, what they will remember along with the tears that they shed late at night, is that on Fridays -

there was always cake.

Dear Darin,

Now that you are old enough to have a sense of humor about this, I think that it is time to admit to the fact that I owe you an apology.

After all, you are my nephew and there is nothing that I would not do for you.

It was 1992 and your mother and I were running all over town, at the last minute, trying to pull together your Halloween costume. You wanted to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Was that so wrong? Was it too much to ask?

You were only eight years old, for Pete’s sake? We could have done better.

Because we waited until the last minute — surprise. There were no more Ninja Turtle costumes to be found. We panicked, and with only hours to go before the trick-or-treating festivities would begin, we had no choice but to use the only resources that were available.

With only a pair of black opaque tights, a black leotard, sunglasses, a white sheet and a black fedora, at our disposal, we transformed you (bless your little trusting heart) into our very own homemade super hero —

BROTHAH MAN!

That’s right. Halloween 1992, we let you go out; rather, we sent you out trick-or-treating dressed up in a pair of ladies tights and leotard. We invented the name Brothah Man as a way to to sell it to you — the idea of an eight year old boy wearing his Mother’s leotard and his Auntie’s tights — and you bought it. Shame on us and I am not the least bit proud of myself.

So, this is my official public apology to you, and quite frankly, I think that your Mother owes you one too.

Love,

Aunt Dana

Great minds have proven, indeed, that the shortest path between two points is a straight line.

Unless,

you are interested in more than simply getting from point “A” to point “B”.

The actual distance, to be sure, between where you are and where you want to be, can only be measured by the width and the breadth and the depth of the countless and unexpected circumstances, setbacks and disappointments you’ve encountered along the way.

And yet,

the sum total of all of the obstacles that exist between you and where you want to be will seem immeasurable at times.

The shortest path is the easy path, like the path of least resistance. And, the path of least resistance has never led anyone to greatness, because the road to greatness will require that you endure and it will demand that you -

BELIEVE.

He writes:

“I would talk to anyone who would listen. Mostly though I just traveled, often driving alone, first from ward to ward…then from county to county and from town to town…up and down the state, across miles and miles of corn fields and bean fields and train tracks and silos…I had to rely on friends or acquaintances to open up their houses to whomever might come…Sometimes after several hours of driving, I would find just two or three people waiting for me around a kitchen table.”

He describes how no one would return his calls, how he held press conferences and nobody came, and how, when he asked to be in the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, he was assigned the last slot, right in front of the sanitation workers hired to clean up after the parade. He marched and waved to what few people remained on the parade route “while workers swept garbage and peeled green shamrock stickers from off of the lamp posts”.

Poised to become the first, and in surrender to the call, which of the details of those humble beginnings remain? Which ones fade away?

She confides:

“When I clapped eyes on the place, I burst into tears. I couldn’t stop crying. For a moment, I was back where I had been all those years ago. And I’m standing there and I’m looking at this place and…it was almost like, I would see the ghost of myself standing in the window and I would be able to communicate to that person,

‘It’s all going to be okay. You know, you’re working so hard, and it will be okay. And it will be more than okay, it will be fabulous’.”

She reflects on her first visit back to the apartment where she had been living and struggling trying to write that first book.

Confronting the past from the present, knowing how it all turns out in the end, how difficult is it to remember the days when hope was a luxury but certainly not an option?

He remembers:

“I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There is no end and no beginning; there is only one’s own mind, which can begin to play tricks. Was that a dream or did it really happen? One begins to question everything. Did I make the right decision? Was my sacrifice worth it? In solitary, there is no distraction from these haunting questions.”

Put on trial for sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy, found guilty and sentenced to life forever in prison and under the harshest conditions, he refers to that time as “the dark years”.

Free at last to finally follow the dictates of a steadfast heart, can the truth of the memory of a time and a place when it was impossible to conjure up freedom again, withstand?

Imagine.

One of the hardest things that anyone will ever do is to talk themselves into believing the possibility of having something that looks completely impossible to obtain. Running for public office when no one really knows or cares about who you are, because you can see what the world might be like - if only; writing a book when you don’t have two nickels to rub together, but you do have kids to feed, because you’ve been captivated by the limitlessness of your own imagination; fighting the good fight relentlessly, in solitude and from behind bars, unable to distinguish the beginning from the end, because you believe it is every man’s right to be free -

TAKES EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT!

And to keep on enduring and believing will require of you, even more than that.

Did Barack Obama drive all of those miles to speak to just three people around a kitchen table because he was already basking in the glow of notoriety and support? And did he seek to hold public office because he felt that he had nothing extraordinary to say?

When J.K. Rowlings sat at her desk night after night, re-arranging word after word, was it because she already had somebody’s guarantee in writing or a foot in the door somewhere? Did she choose to be a writer because there was nothing else that she could do?

Confined and alone in an 8-by-8 foot space for 26 years at the prime of his life, wouldn’t Nelson Mandela have been justified in rationalizing that he had already done more than his fair share?

And you?

Getting from point “A” to point “B” is easy when all you are doing is running out to pick up a loaf of bread. Getting from where you are to where you want to be when you are crystal clear that you are destined — is going to seem impossible at times. You will be tempted to choose the path of least resistance because a journey on the road less traveled is guaranteed to break your heart. It will challenge everything that you know to be true. You will work hard, drive alone and question, everyday, whether or not you made the right decision in the first place.

Many a man will dream a dream because dreaming a dream - that’s the easy part. Few men, however, will actually go after their dream with everything they’ve got; few men will choose greatness,

because –

the shortest path between two points is a straight line.

Dana