Play Nice

Recently I re-read a bunch of old posts (noted: I am not a good writer and I use too many parentheses). One of the themes that came through to me was that, as Democratic a partisan as I am, I root more for political niceties. Many of my posts plead with people from different sides to listen to one another and not insult one another just because they disagree.

"When it comes to our political views, let's blindly follow the lead of idiot celebrities and pop culture rather than think for ourselves."

As I am wont to do, I recently acquired a new Facebook friend. She* posts a lot of very one sided political things which drive me a little crazy. For purposes of this post it's not really important which side. But it reminded me that we are all view the world through our own partisan lens. When we read the news or learn about current events, we process it through the filter of our own experiences and expectations. I am very tempted to hide this friend's posts. But I have so far stopped myself, because I think it is a good reminder to me that I need to step outside myself and try to see things from others' perspectives.

It also got me thinking about the last time I really changed my mind about a political issue. For all that I claim to be so open minded, I couldn't remember the last time I really heard a good argument about a political issue. As a fallible human being, I know intellectually that not all my opinions are correct. Yet I cling to them - why?

Part of this is the lack of decent, thought provoking debate on the internet. Much of it descends into name calling, trolling, and ALL CAPS screaming matches. Whenever I do brave the political waters on the Facebook, it inevitably turns ugly - fast. Also, I am really bad at choosing a side in good debates because I think whoever is talking has some good points and I'm with them until the other side refutes it (indecisiveness!). But part of my lack of mind-changing-ness is undoubtedly the stubbornness factor. It is easier to stick with opinions on "my" side because it's safer. I have to use less brain power to reason out my arguments if my opponents are crazy people who kow-tow to the Koch Brothers or Nancy Pelosi or Communists (pick your favorite boogeyman, insert here).

So, yet again, this post comes down to the over-arching theme of being nice. Listen. I've found I learn a lot more when I shut my mouth. I'm going to try to re-examine some of my own opinions, and change them if I find them to be wrong. How do you find out you're wrong? What can we do to play nice and encourage genuine political debate in such forums as Facebook?

"The enemy is not Muslims or Christians or Judaism...The Real enemy is Extremism."

*Could be "he" or "she" - for purposes of this post I'm just using the female pronoun (I flipped a coin), and I didn't want to give away the friend's gender on the very remote chance that he/she reads this post.

Happy Tax Day!

Someday I will write an entire musical about tax accounting. It will be epic. For now, here is the opening song of my future glory, sung to the tune of "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof. I've even added some of the dialogue which is in italics.  First you should listen to the real thing:



A tax code that has 3.8 million words. Sounds crazy, no? But in our little country of America, everyone of us must file a tax return, (hopefully) without getting an IRS audit. You may ask, how do we keep our sanity, if it's so complicated?  That I can tell you in one word - EXTENSION!

Extension! Extension! Extension!
Extension! Extension! Extension!

Because of our extensions, we've kept our sanity
For many many tax busy seasons.
Here in the U.S., we have extensions for everything
Partnerships, Corporations, Individuals.
For instance, we always extend, if the GAAP audit isn't finished,
Or simply if we are too lazy to find our receipts.
This shows our constant devotion to patriotism.
You may ask, how did these extensions get started?
I'll tell you. I don't know.
And because of our extensions, everyone of us knows how long we have, 
But has no clue what the IRS expects us to do.

Who day and night must scramble for the info,
Forget other responsiblities, have the daily calls?
And who has the right as the payer of the bills
To have the final say on the return?
The client! The client! Extension!
The client! The client! Extension!

Who must know the way to complete the return?
A correct return, a complete return?
Who must complete the workpapers and fill the forms?
So the client's free to not read the IRC?*
CPA Firm! CPA Firm! Extension!
CPA Firm! CPA Firm! Extension!

At 8 (a.m.), I started reading cases, at 10 (p.m.) I learned the regs,
I hear they've picked a client for me, I hope it's easy!
The manager! The manager! Extension!
The manager! The manager! Extension!

And who does manager teach? To enter, add, and calculate?
Preparing me to understand even the tax rate?
The staff! The staff! Extension!
The staff! The staff! Extension!

The client! CPA Firm! Manager! Staff! Extension!

And in the circle of our little country, we've always had our special types. For instance, confused and desperate taxpayers, IRS Tax Auditors, and most importantly, our beloved taxpayer service hotline.

Taxpayer: IRS, may I ask you a question?
IRS Customer Service Representative: Certainly, my citizen.
Taxpayer: Is there a proper way to evade taxes?
IRS Customer Service Representative: A proper way to evade taxes?  Of course! Be unemployed, have no salary, and thus no taxable income!

Then there are the others in our country. They have a much bigger influence. His honor, the tax court judge. Her honor, the taxwriting committee congresswoman. Her honor, the K Street lobbyist. His honor, the 1% who contribute to vast sums to elections. His honor, many many others... We don't bother them, and so far, they don't notice us. And among ourselves, we always understand tax code perfectly well. Of course, there was that one time, we argued about who had to file the return last year, but it's all settled now, and now we don't argue about it any more.

Wife: I mailed it in, on April 14th!
Husband: I e-filed it, on April 15th!
Wife: MAIL!
Husband: E-FILE!

Extensions! Extensions! Extensions!
Extensions! Extensions! Extensions!

Extensions, Extensions - without our extensions, our lives would be as crazy confusing, as a 3.8 million word tax code!


So, who's willing to bankroll my Broadway career as the next Rogers & Hammerstein?

*Internal Revenue Code

Extraordinary Occasions - 170 Years Young

I really should post a Happy Birthday Relief Society post!  But, it's already been done better here (prosaically) and here (poetically).

Relief Society inspires me to look higher, to be better, to acquire charity. I don't live up to its theme, but I (sometimes) try. This simple video just reminded me of the simple goodness that Relief Society brings. The greatest testimony of Relief Society for me comes from associating with women who try to live it. They're imperfect and fall short, like me, but I can see the kindness and goodness that comes from living the truths of the gospel. Yep, I'm a nerd for Relief Society. Shocker.



Happy 170th, Relief Society!

Crimes in Crimea

In college, I took an international politics class, and ended up studying Iraq with a nationally recognized expert on that country. It was a fascinating time to be studying that region, as the U.S. was gearing up for war and eventually invaded Iraq a few months after I finished the class. I remember writing a short paper on why invading Iraq was a bad idea (to be fair to my powers of prophecy, I stole the idea from a Foreign Affairs article I was summarizing). I still think invading Iraq was a bad idea, even if Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. But this post isn't about America's iniquities in Iraq, or atrocities in Afghanistan, or even our long-ago capers in Cuba. Rather, it's about Russian President Putin's power grab in Crimea. Yet often, America gets accused of hypocrisy when we condemn aggression by other nations.

Living in Russia for a year and a half, I got a whole earful of ordinary Russians' world views. I learned who really won World War II (spoiler alert: not the Americans), and why things were better and more stable under Soviet rule. It opened my eyes when one girl told of growing up in the post-Soviet era 90's, awakening one day to find that prices in the stores had doubled overnight while her family's wages stayed the same. It helped me understand why people viewed the (relative) stability that Putin brought as a good thing. True, their lives weren't great, but ordinary was better than chaos.

Returning from my mission, I took a Russian culture class (which should be required BEFORE going on missions, but that's another story). In learning more about Russian culture and history, I learned about the leaders who had managed to unite the diverse and huge geography that makes up Russia. It is not easy to rule such a country, and Russians have typically favored strong leaders. They don't have much positive experience with democracy.

Yet, even knowing the background of some of Russia's world view, and allowing for my own hypocrisy in supporting American intervention in other conflicts like Afghanistan, I still feel justified in condemning this aggression by Russia. Ukraine, and Ukrainians, threw out a leader in a popular uprising. The country is working towards new elections. You should not invade a sovereign nation just because they overthrew the government that was friendly to you. Critiquing American hypocrisy is deflecting attention from the fact that Russia condemned such actions but is now endorsing them to further its own goals. Let the Ukrainian people (including the ethnic Russians!) decide their own fate.

Genial in a Bottle

One of my friends posted a thing to Facebook today about which U.S. President would win in a knife fight (Teddy Roosevelt was the article's answer). I've recently been reading "Bully Pulpit" about Teddy and Bill Taft.  I have to say I do love Teddy, but I'm surprised how much I really like Taft.  I can't say I remember much about him from history class, but he seems like a fundamentally decent guy, who was well liked by everybody. So I think Taft would talk everyone down from the knife fight, and build bridges of understanding through his genial temperament.  I wish we could bottle that and give it to today's politicians!

Today's the Day

Recently, my favorite satirical newspaper, The Onion, had an article titled "Today The Day They Find Out You're a Fraud." Around the same time, my friend made a comment that struck me - she said I appeared very confident. The comment struck me particularly because that day I had felt particularly UN-confident and incapable of doing anything right. In fact, I had felt that at any moment people would discover what a fraud and sham I was.

This correlates with a passage in Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In," where she describes a talk she heard while in college. The speaker stated that "...many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can't seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for they really are - impostors with limited skills or abilities."

Sandberg describes her feelings: "every time I was called on in class, I was sure that I was about to embarrass myself. Every time I took a test, I was sure that it had gone badly. And every time I didn't embarrass myself-or even excelled-I believed that I had fooled everyone yet again. One day the jig would be up."

I lack confidence, and totally identify with Sandberg's experience. But it also reminds me of what "confidence" is, which I learned by reading "This is How" by Augusten Burroughs. He states that "if you want to be more confident, you do not need to add anything to your personality or skill level. In fact, you already have too much of something. Because confidence is not the presence of anything at all. Confidence is a reduction of your own interest in whether others are thinking about you and if so, what they're thinking...Confidence is not something you feel or possess; it's something others use to describe what they see when the look at you" (This is How, pages 63-64).

That description was a revelation to me - confidence is about not worrying what people think. I have a really hard time doing that, because I want to be the person that everyone thinks well of. Sometimes I think I want to be thought of as X (generous, kind, loving, cheerful, etc.) more than I actually want to BE X. The problem with that is that I waste so much time and energy worrying about what other people think instead of actually developing X qualities. I need to STOP IT.

A scene from a Julia Roberts movie illustrates this. She's an indecisive bride who likes her eggs the way that the other people around her like them. It's emblematic of her lack of knowledge of what she wants.

From "Runaway Bride," With Richard Gere and Julia Roberts

So, get out there and decide what kind of eggs you want! Don't worry about people thinking you're a fraud, because that's just a waste of worry.

Expounding and Exhorting

Note: January has apparently been the month for me to take a break from any New Year's resolutions or re-commitment to blogging...I'm going to try to start blogging every Monday again.

At my last work training event, part of the first day was devoted to a large group meeting of everyone in my practice group in my firm - hundreds of people. The first part of this meeting was the leader of my group talking about financial metrics. He then turned in over to one of his colleagues in the leadership group to lead a discussion of some tax technical issues. She brought two other tax partners up on stage and they had a discussion about these issues and the services our firm provides related to the issues.

Not really a remarkable discussion, except for the fact that all three participants in the conversation were women. On the flight to training, I had started reading "Lean In" by Sheryl Sandberg, and so I noticed this particular moment and marked it in my mind. These women were articulate, poised, and confident. I don't know all of them, but the woman leading the discussion has a few happy, well-adjusted children, whom I've met, as she works in an office near mine. Later on, this same woman would field some very demanding questions knowledgeably, and she held her ground under some tough demands by men in the audience who perhaps had more years in the firm (she was right, by the way).

I don't share this because I was surprised that women could be articulate, rather I was reminded of some of the things I learned while reading Sandberg's "Lean In." Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this meeting was that it wasn't remarkable to the people in the room. Afterwards, no one was saying, "gosh, why did they let three women lead a meeting?" No one else seemed to notice (or care) that three women in leadership were teaching a group of men and women. It wasn't unusual or abnormal to listen to women in positions of authority. One of my favorite Sandberg quotes was: "In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders."

As a lifelong church member, I've attended many meetings in church, and it's very, very rare to see a similar meeting where women are "in charge" of a group of both men and women. Women lead Relief Society and Primary meetings, but those organizations are made up primarily of women and children (some male Primary teachers, I grant you). There have been recent attempts by the church to integrate women into the decision making structure of the church (training on effective use of councils including women voices, sister missionary leaders), but for the most part, women do not play a large part in leadership in the church. This is evident by the graph below, which was put together based on the Church's 2013 General Conference (put together by the good folks at By Common Consent, a Mormon blog).

I had never thought about it, but there is a higher percentage of male speakers at the women's meeting of General Conference than there is of female participation in the General sessions of conference. Something that some men have talked about in recent General Conference talks is how wonderful women are (see here and here for recent examples). This idea holds that women are unique, with individual gifts of the spirit and a different role than men. This is troubling to me for two contradictory reasons.

First, if it is true, then why would we not want to have more women in leadership/speaking/teaching positions in the church? If we women, as a group, truly do have unique insights or talents, why would you use only 50% of the talent given to the church? If women ARE all that you say we are, wouldn't it be helpful to hear from them more often? Wouldn't men benefit from being taught by this group of people?

Two, what if it isn't true? What if women and men don't really have demonstrable differences in our characters? In my opinion it leads to the same conclusion as the first point - why would we limit ourselves to only men teachers/leaders? It seems an unfair burden to the men and a lack of opportunity for women.

Dear reader(s), don't interpret this as a jab at men. I have known many wonderful male leaders in the church, who have inspired me by word and example. However, I have likewise known many capable and wonderful women who have the ability to inspire and teach, but have done so in smaller venues. I simply feel that women and men would be blessed by hearing these inspiring women.

I'll close with a scripture that flies in the face of Paul's advice to "let your women keep silence in the churches..." (1 Corinthians 14:34). Emma Smith was told: "And thou shalt be ordained under [Joseph's] hand to expound scriptures, and to exhort the church, according as it shall be given thee by my Spirit." (D&C 25:7). Lest you think this a role only for a prophet's wife, the Lord reminds us "and verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my voice unto all..." (D&C 25:16). Expounding scriptures and exhorting the entire church sounds like a role for women I can get behind.

Let's hear it for the girls ladies sisters! I hope to share some more insights from "Lean In" in the coming months - I really enjoyed that book.