Browsing Category Lifestyle and Culture

How many people do you know to whom you can tell a secret and know that it will never be told? Some people don’t believe that there is a single soul who can not tell a secret. Benjamin Franklin may have been one of the skeptics when he wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanac “Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”  

I don’t need to tell you that there are many and various reasons why people keep secrets. Do I?  Consider this, if someone tells you a secret about someone else, it is more likely gossip and the person sharing the confidential information is merely – and eagerly – engaging in a crafty variation of The Telephone Game, frequently referred to as the “Pass-It-On” game.  Because people love to talk about other people’s lives, the person who originally tells you the secret, for added drama may say, “I am only telling this to you. If I hear it again, I will know who it came from.” That veiled threat is to hold you to confidence, so that the spiller of the secret can continue to tell it to others – before you do.  

However, if the secret is about the person who shared it with you, then she obviously expects (while crossing her fingers and toes) that you will keep her secret. Would you? A woman may want to share her secret only with her closet friend, perhaps because she feels the need to discuss it with someone who she believes she can trust to keep it to herself. But we know human nature, and regardless of whether it sounds sexist for me to say what I am about to say I’m saying it – I believe that men keep secrets better than women.  A woman HAS to tell someone.  After all, what is the point of having a secret if you can’t share? It’s okay, you can agree. Even if a woman shares her personal secret with her best friend, chances are nine to one that her best friend will tell her best friend who will tell someone else and before you can say, “Breaking News” the secret is public knowledge. So the bearer of the secret conceals it like a winning poker hand. Maybe one day she will decide to reveal her secret, but even if she does not, hopefully she will not have killed two other people in order to keep it.

The way I see it, there is a little Green-Eyed Monster inside all of us.  It is more ferocious in some than others. At its worst, it has driven some people to do the unthinkable, but even at its best, the crafty beast has been known to cause intense rivalry among friends, co-workers, neighbors, and even within families.

The monster’s alias may not be recognizable to all, but many know it as “jealousy and envy.” It is a dual spirit that makes its vulnerable host covet the possessions, social status or advantages held by another person.  A willing participant in the monster’s game can be easily led to emotional or financial bankruptcy while trying to keep up with the Jones. Some conscientious folk refuse to be lured by old Green-Eyes, but egotists are easy prey and they eagerly play the game.

People are peculiar.  As long as they perceive that you are at the same social or economic level as they are, they have no problem, but as soon as you appear to gain a step up or veer in a different or more positive direction, the monster within the straggler awakens.

Picture a hypothetical family. Intermittently, forty-year old Harvey purchases a pricey new car, moves into a large house, and buys a 42 inch LCD TV. Harvey’s cousin, Abby, around the same age as Harvey refuses be outdone. Although she can barely afford it, she makes sure that their family and mutual friends know that she outdid Harvey, because she bought a more expensive car, a larger house, and a 46 inch Plasma.

Harvey’s younger sister Eloise is promoted to floor manager at the department store where she works, and immediately telephones her favorite Aunt Mabel to share her good fortune. She receives the expected well-wishes and “Congratulations!” from her aunt.  A couple of days later, Aunt Mabel’s crafty daughter, Genevieve , who thrives on one-upmanship, phones Eloise and causally mentions to her, “Oh, by the way, did I tell you that I was promoted to Vice President on my job”?  Need I say that the Green-Eyed Monster also encourages habitual lying?

People may criticize and judge you, but they don’t know what sacrifices you endured to get where you are. Jealousy and envy are not limited to any particular racial group, gender, class, or age. The Green-Eyed Monster runs across the board of humanity like a rabid dog. Self-confident people will refuse to nurture the fiend, but within the psyche of insecure people lays the angst that triggers intense rivalry, causing them to get so wrapped up in competitiveness that they fail to realize that tit-for-tat interplay is an unending contest. There will always be people who have more or less than others. Unless you are mired in the quicksand of self-deprecation and low self-esteem, all you need to do to quash the Green-Eyed Monster is to simply opt out of playing the game.

Imagine that you are just an average Jill or Joe going about your daily routine. On a typical day you are sitting in front of a computer, working in your office. Or you might be walking along a highway picking-up tin cans. Blink your eyes once, and then open them. Suddenly, you are spiraling in a sea of dozens of flashing lights and snapping cameras as numerous strangers simultaneously pull you in different directions while instructing you to do this and that, and rushing you here and there. Normalcy abruptly leaves your life.

Andy Warhol predicted that everyone would be “world famous for 15 minutes.” Life altering events can bring instantaneous fame to anyone in the blink of an eye, and the changes accompanying sudden notoriety can be a blessing or an albatross. While some bask in the limelight of discovery, others whose fame resulted from a heroic act unhesitatingly say to anyone within earshot, “I am not a hero.”   

Traditional heroes are renowned military, religious, or political figures who have held an extended and important role in history, but reluctant heroes are more like shooting stars. They are ordinary people who by a quirk of fate emerge on the scene for a short while. Then, in a matter of days or months they may vanish again into anonymity. Just as quickly as their name sprouts in our memory, it is soon forgotten.

Ted Williams, Daniel Hernandez, Lenny Skutnik, Mike Jones, Jack Whittaker. Will you remember who they are a year or two from now? Do you even know who they are today? Each of these people achieved instant fame, because they happened to be at a particular place at a specific time or they did something that ignited a major change in their life.

Ted Williams, a homeless man, held up a sign. Daniel Hernandez, an intern in the office of a U.S. Congresswoman helped save her life. Lenny Skutnik, a former public servant, jumped into the icy Potomac River and rescued a passenger following a plane crash. Security officer Mike Jones felled a gunman who was shooting at participants at a school board meeting. Jack Whittaker merely purchased a ticket and won $315 million in the Powerball lottery. The common factor among them is that they all garnered instant fame. With fame comes responsibility. It can be a shiny, double-edged sword generating abundant good fortune or spawning cumulative troubles.