Reluctant Online Banker Gives It A Go

I don’t do online banking. I realize that makes me a timid old lady, not up to date with the Internet world and I don’t mind. Not one bit. I enjoy the hands-on experience of entering my checks in the register, writing the numbers and reconciling my checkbook each month. When I was working I did that modest accounting for two checkbooks and found it satisfying. I use the same adding machine now that I used in those days and that pleases me in a “so there!” kind of way.

Besides online banking seems fraught with disaster. Just one more hacking opportunity for someone determined to make his/her living through cyber crime.

What I do mind is that for the last few months I have been scrambling to pay my condominium fees on time. Our fees are due on the first of the month, considered late on the fifteenth. No reminder is sent. I haven’t actually been late with my payment, but I can be standing looking at cereals at Stop and Shop when suddenly it hits me that it is the tenth of the month and I haven’t paid. The urge to race home and write the check nearly overwhelms me, as if they were going to throw me out any minute.

 I was grousing about this situation when a friend, informed me that she has automatic withdrawal to pay her monthly condo fees. She never has to think about it. That afternoon I headed for my bank armed with condo information.

The kind and helpful young woman in the office—I will call her Mary-- invites me to sit down. I explain my purpose: to set up automatic payments from the bank to my condominium each month. Right away she begins to sell me on the virtues of online banking. “No, No,” I say. “I want just this one thing.”

Her call to the condominium office reveals that the payment can indeed be automatic, but only through the online banking system of my bank.

Right! I am cooked!

Mary seizes the moment to explain that she can help me do this right now in her office—holding my hand, as it were—and then it will be accomplished. That sounds pretty good so I agree. And we do the thing: the ID number, new password, etc.  And suddenly the computer displays a big banking page that says “Welcome, Cecily.”  The bank: my new best friend, with me not at all sure I want to be welcomed.

Mary instructs me to click on Bill Pay in order to enter the payee information. I do this and what comes up is: “Bill Pay is unavailable. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Try again later.”

Mary is dismayed. I, the reluctant online banker, become even more wary. Mary says how very sorry she is and suggests that I go home and “try again later.”

I do that: Four times over a period of two and a half days. The “Bill Pay” message remains the same. On the third day I call Customer Service and while I am passed along to various people on the phone, messages pour into my ear about how fabulous, how convenient, high ranking, and superior this bank is and I confess, I want to throw the phone across the room.

 Ultimately I am shuffled through three layers of tech persons: each one moving me on to his “supervisor.” I end up with young, nice-sounding, Pete, who has me make several moves on my Mac while he engages in various maneuvers at his end—not without glitches. 

“This is a tricky problem,” Pete admits to me. “Bear with me, Cecily.” I have now been on the phone for forty-five minutes and, I have to admit that in spite of not being keen in the first place, stubbornness has set in. I "bear with" Pete.

While he is doing whatever he is doing, I seize the opportunity to tell him exactly that: how reluctant I am about using online banking, how it satisfies me to do my own checkbook and that I want this service for just one monthly transaction.

Pete laughs. “I know what you mean,” he says. ”I do my own checkbook, too. I completely understand,”

 Now I am laughing. “You do?” A tech person for a bank does his own checkbook? 

“Yup.”

I am exonerated! I  think, just as Pete announces triumphantly, “I think I’ve got it!” He tells me to log in again and click on Bill Pay—for what is the fourth time-- and what ho! It works!

I confess to Pete that I am not up for going any further with this project right now. Pete says, ”fine,” but that when I do choose to enter that payee, “you will find” he tells me, “that the system is not as intuitive as you would want.” Therefore, he goes on to say, I should “call tech help to set it up whenever I feel like it.”

“Don’t go through customer service,” Pete says, and he gives me the direct tech number for the bank. “I am so sorry, Cecily, about what a mess this has been and I absolutely understand your hesitation and frustration.”

I thank him for helping me and for making me laugh. Who knows? I may never do this. Then again, maybe I will. But I love this guy!

Born with the capacity? Resilience Re Visited

“Resilience presents a challenge for psychologists.” Maria Konnikova writes in her February New Yorker article, How People Learn To Be Resilient. “Whether you can be said to have it or not largely depends not on any particular psychological test but on the way your life unfolds. If you are lucky enough never to experience any adversity, we won’t know how resilient you are. It’s only when you are faced with obstacles, stress and other environmental threats that resilience, or the lack of it emerges: Do you succumb or do you surmount?”

I don’t know about Konnikova, but I’ve never met anyone who “was lucky enough never to experience any adversity.” Have you? After all, we have all lived through childhood, the teen years, marriage, the early parenting years, jobs, loss of every sort: the list is endless. In fact, to my way of thinking, to be alive is to experience both joy and adversity. There’s no way out of it. Sometimes a pile up of “stressors,”-- as Konnikova speaks of adversity—can feel like more than a person can bear.

 Konnikova addresses that issue. “What matters is the intensity and duration of the stressor.” That, according to scientists, seems to be the effective way resilience can be tested.

The study that Konnikova referenced in her article that interested me most was that of developmental psychologist, Emmy Werner. Werner, through her painstaking documentation and many years of follow- through, discovered that one third of the children she followed who had grown up in seriously adverse circumstances developed into “competent, confident and caring young adults.” The bottom line question was, what set these kids apart from the other two thirds who ultimately became wounded, destructive adults?

According to Werner, a child from a deprived background who demonstrated resilience might—with luck-- have met up with a particularly supportive adult: a teacher, a coach, a consistent mentor. But the surprising discovery was that the psychology of the one third of the children from deprived backgrounds who were found to be resilient, was different.

These children “tended to meet the world on their own terms. They were autonomous and independent, would seek out new experiences, and had a positive social orientation. Most importantly,” Werner discovered, "these resilient children had . . . an internal locus of control: they believed that they, and not their circumstances, affected their achievements. They saw themselves as orchestrators of their own fates.”

 An “internal locus of control.” “Orchestrators of their own fates.” Where did that awareness, that confidence, come from in traumatized kids: kids who had been abused, kids who had starved, kids who had little or no emotional support?

Genes? A gift from God? The accumulated knowledge of lifetimes? Whatever you believe, it is awesome that these kids had that gift. We should all be so wise! No whining, no blaming. Just getting on with it. That doesn’t mean no setbacks; it means understanding our setbacks as opportunities to learn, grow and to strengthen our ability to be compassionate.

 “Stressors “ can knock us for a loop. And if there are too many and the stress goes on over a sustained period of time, we can simply fold—whatever shape that takes for us. Still the evidence is clear that those who recover best and most quickly after a stomach-slam of suffering are those who have, as I noted in Resilience: Do We Have It? How Can We Get it? a “strong and unshakeable core of beliefs.”

Konnikova quotes clinical psychologist, George Bonanno. “Events are not traumatic until we experience them as traumatic.” In other words trauma is in the mind and eye of the beholder. 

Bonanno also argues that the people who deal best with acute negative events are those who interpret them as opportunities to learn. (True, Mr Bonanno, but not until I have picked myself up off the floor.)

He goes on to say that the folks who do this best and soonest were “far more likely to report having sources of spiritual and religious support” than those who had no “core of beliefs.”

The good news? According to Bonanno, is that we “can make ourselves less vulnerable by how we think about things.” We can learn to “reframe them in positive terms.”  

 We are definitely talking about the power of positive thinking here. We know this story; we may not be able to pull it off in our lives all that well, but we know this story for sure.

The power of positive thinking, (Dr. Norman Vincent Peale) used to be understood as a quasi/religious concept we could ponder. Nowadays study after scientific study have demonstrated its life-changing truth.

New to me are the results of Emmy Werner’s study, which demonstrated over years of observation that one third of the children she followed who came from abusive and poverty backgrounds did not learn the power of positive thinking, did not struggle to “reframe” their experiences. Instead, they were born with that power. Now that is something to ponder.

                                                      ***

Reminder: Beware of pointing out to a suffering friend the learning that might be gained from her experience. The friend has every right to deck you. Do  your best to remain compassionate; stay with her grief and allow her to discover whenever and whatever she may from the trauma.

Off I go!

And so . . . Paris! The right decision. When is Paris anything other than the right decision, I’d like to know?

After six months of a determined and more than annoying rash all over my body and then, of late, being besieged with concerns about my sister’s health, with help from a friend we organized what we could and, as planned, I left the country. Good move, Stranahan!

Thank God that the contact allergy dermatitis that I have been chasing around for all these months seemed to have subsided a few weeks before I left—no more Jo Malone in my life! Nonetheless, I traveled with more potions than you can imagine in order to keep my unreliable skin under control.

Paris healed me: Paris, and friends from the UK, who so kindly met me there. We ate too much, laughed and talked about life in St Mawes, Cornwall.  We walked and walked, our minds and hearts enlivened by one of the most beautiful cities in the world: the zing of the traffic, the casual chic of the Parisiennes, the marvelous paintings and buildings and parks. My eldest son, our wonderful guide and translator, remained cheerful and undaunted by his constant surround of females of a certain age.

 Just a week: just what I needed. On the way home on the plane I thought about how cleared, cleaned and refreshed I felt. I had no idea how deeply grooved into sameness I had become. There is another world besides Southport, CT! There is another world besides allergy appointments. (Mind you, I am constantly aware of how lucky I am that my disability of the moment is only an allergy.) There is another world besides the I 95 corridor. Hurrah!

My back was itchy against the fabric of the seat in the plane and I didn’t give a damn.  

Thinking about how liberated I felt, I became stunningly conscious of the human need for a change of scene. It doesn’t have to be Paris. There are lovely old villages in Connecticut: Mystic, Washington, Cornwall. Heck, a day in New York at MoMA, Bergdorf’s, or to see a play will help. Anything that breaks our patterns—even if they are worthy patterns—is, I am convinced, good for our health. Beware of ruts, routines that bind us.  No doctor would support this theory, but I think our dedication to sameness produces a stodgy blood flow that inhibits creativity and joy.

I’ve read that some businesses, seriously believing in R and R-- Google, I think, is one-- insist and perhaps even pay for their employees to take holidays. That being so, I must not be all wet on this.

 You don’t have to be working to get into a rut. Fully retired, I was in one. So, whatever your age and health and finances will allow, find somewhere new to visit or re- visit an old favorite. Catapult yourself out of your comfort zone. Wake up to new life. Recreation means re-creation.  

Check it out; test the theory. See if I am right or just a bit crazy. (Actually, I’ll happily settle for the latter.)

We Don't Notice Their Wings

 My sister has been in hospital for five days. Her 94 year- old husband has been at home. Bless his daughter, who, when I called about this emergency, she packed up and drove here from Saratoga.  

Now, with Anne at home, it's all about food, and organization and that's fine except, as the laughing Buddha would have it, I am leaving for Paris on Monday for a week. I will be going with my oldest son, superb translator and guide, and meeting several friends from my English life, so this trip involves a number of people and it is not possible to cancel. Well, I suppose it is possible, but I won't, and besides, my sister wouldn't allow it.

A mutual friend of Anne's and mine has offered to be point person in my stead and Anne's husband's daughter is willing to stay, so Anne and her spouse are covered. One amazing, marvelous, wonderful thing about illness is the way in which people appear out of the blue to help.

Let me tell you how this "point person" came about. On Friday morning last week my sister presented an in depth and interesting paper on Tess of the d'Ubervilles for the English Literary Club of which she is a long-time member.  Although not a member, I was there. My sister has emphysema and, of course, was carrying her oxygen bag.  She has had a cold. Some coughing occurred during the presentation but, thankfully, it was curtailed by gulps of water.

About an hour after the meeting was over, a friend of hers, who had been at the presentation, stopped her car in the Southport Woods lot to speak with me as I was walking along carrying groceries. What she said was, "Cecily, I know your sister might be reluctant to ask, but I thought you might be willing. If she or you ever need any help I am here and want to be of assistance."

How nice, Mary!" I say. "I will remember." And that was that. 

Little did I know . . . 

 Two hours later my sister calls from the doctor's office. The doctor has declared, "You! Hospital! Now!"

I am to meet Anne in the ER at Bridgeport Hospital.  I have not been to Bridgeport Hospital for at least twelve years. I used to work in the Pastoral Care department at St. Vincent's, so I can find my way there easily, but Bridgeport? This directionally impaired person who doesn't trust WAZE, hasn't a clue!

I call Mary, Mary from the parking lot, who, praise God, is at home. 

"Can you believe this? I explain what has happened. "Do you know your way to Bridgeport Hospital?" Mary has lived here all her life; I am on safe ground. And, true to her offer, Mary willingly drives me to the ER to find Anne. We hang out with our books, fetch water, talk to doctors and Mary brings me home.

Over the next five days I manage the trip to Bridgeport Hospital on my own.  As the days draw closer to my departure for Paris, Mary offers to take my place and see to Anne: organize a team to pick up  food, and look after necessary details of convalescing at home.  I can leave on Monday without a worry.

 Her offer? In the parking lot? Just hours before the ambulance sirens Anne away?  Imagine! What a blessing! God's angels are everywhere. We just don't notice their wings.

He Didn't Think It Through?

“He didn’t think it through.” That’s what Gov. Mike Huckabee said this morning (Thursday) on The Morning Joe Show when questioned about Donald Trump’s pronouncement that a woman who has an illegal abortion should be “punished.”

When Trump was pressed on that statement by interviewer Chris Matthews: eg: “Punished?” How? Sent to prison? Did she commit murder? Rapid fire questions like that. Trump could not answer. He had shot from the hip once again and possibly this time that shot could be terminal. Some polls are showing a 70% Trump disapproval rating among woman, women both pro-choice and pro-life.

Chris Matthews also asked if the man who created an unwanted pregnancy should be punished and Trump swiftly responded “ I would say no”.

I can’t even go there.

Later in the day Trump scampered to redeem himself by stating that the doctor performing the illegal abortion should go to prison. Whew! There! Am I out of this mess now?

Well not exactly. This was not a spontaneous, ill-considered comment that will go away easily. Nor should it.

Do we actually want a president who, under pressure, blurts out un-thought-through statements like that? Could we trust him to meet cordially, calmly and sensitively with the Prime Ministers and Presidents of other countries, say, Iran, China, Israel, Syria, Pakistan, Germany? Never mind our patient and forbearing ally, England?

Are we so entranced by promises of “great deals for America” by the “best deal-maker” in the world that we don’t mind if, under pressure, he is unable to THINK?

I am aware that when I post this it will be old news and that many of you who read this blog will have already had these thoughts yourself and therefore will not find this entry particularly interesting. And maybe some of you see this situation very differently, in which case I sincerely welcome your comments and points of view. I am so incensed right now that I just can’t write about anything else.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not crazy about any of these candidates. For me, this fall, I fear it will be a matter of, if you will forgive the expression, “least worst.”