“Yes, thank you,” I replied, but I was irritated. She hadn’t said, “Thank you” or “Enjoy your dinner.” In short, she had made what had been a fun evening out for me into a bit of a downer. She didn’t ruin my evening since I wasn’t going to give her that kind of power, and she didn’t do anything exactly rude or upsetting. She simply seemed indifferent to having my business. In a way, I can understand that, but after having to deal with the public myself for years, I know that’s not how you treat a customer.

As I drove home, through my head ran all the responses I could have given her. “Yes, that’s it except for the smile and ‘Thank you’ you’re supposed to give me,” or “Yes, that’s it. You can bet since you obviously don’t care about my business that it will be ‘that’s it’ for a long time to come.”

We’ve all been there. We’ve all had bad customer service experiences. And to give this person the benefit of the doubt, we all have bad days or days when we are just tired. Perhaps it was the end of a long shift after a week of long shifts, or perhaps her boyfriend had just dumped her and she was doing her best just to keep going through the day.

As I said, it didn’t bother me that much, but I did find it amusing how irritated I initially felt that I would try to think up responses of what I wish I had said. It’s rare that I will give people a hard time when they wait on me, and I only will if they deserve it, and I don’t even give them a hard time; I simply assert my right to be treated properly. I try to be pleasant but firm. Now and then, I might be tempted to say, “You know, if you would just try to smile, your day will improve.”

Sadly, I can’t change the world by teaching people what is stellar customer service. What I can do is not allow people to mistreat me when they are supposed to be waiting on me, or customer service will just get worse. And when I meet someone who provides stellar customer service, I can let that person know he or she is doing a good job and I appreciate it. And now and then, when needed, I can set my boundaries without having to try to control or overreact.

How do you deal with your bad customer service experiences? Do you let them have power over you? I’d love to hear from you.

People who are recovering codependents, alcoholics, or anyone who has dealt with boundary issues may have difficulty determining when it is appropriate to tell a secret. If something in our past hurts so much that we feel we have to tell someone, then it is appropriate to tell someone, but we must do so carefully, we must select the right person, and we need to examine our motivation for why we are choosing that person as the one to whom we reveal our secret.

Of course, we have some fear of the other person’s reaction—will he or she decide to comfort or to reject us once we tell our secret. Are we then telling the secret to be honest with that person? Is it because we love that person enough that we want to give him or her the option to stay or leave us rather than being dishonest? Is that person strong enough to make that decision to stay or leave? Or is that person codependent like us so he or she will stay and play the caretaker, and we know that, so we intend to trap someone who will take care of us?

Is it possible that we might want to tell a secret to control the person to whom we tell it? Could we reveal all our family’s dysfunctional past, the crimes or sins we have committed ourselves, and then make that person feel sorry for us so he or she will stay, so we can get sympathy that we hope turns into security and commitment down the road? In other words, do we want to tell our secret so we can manipulate someone?

As I said when I began, we all have secrets. Some are best kept. Others may hurt the person we choose to tell. If your secret is going to hurt a loved one, perhaps it is best left unsaid, or perhaps a loved one is not the person to tell. Perhaps the best person to tell is someone impartial, such as your local priest, minister, rabbi, your counselor, your life coach, or anyone else who is supportive but impartial to the situation. Then you can get your feelings off your chest without putting yourself in jeopardy, and that person can help you determine whether your secret needs to be told.

I’m not advocating that you be dishonest with people. I’m saying that you shouldn’t hurt people by giving them information that is likely only to hurt them. If the person is bound to find out eventually, it will be best coming from you, but if he or she is never likely otherwise to know, think long and hard before you tell your secrets, and make sure you have known the person long enough that you can truly gauge his or her reaction. You may feel the need to speak today, but you may regret having done so tomorrow, or you may stay silent and find that after a month or a year, the secret does not matter that much anymore, and it has been best kept.

It is difficult to know what is best. I simply ask that you consider the other person before you act.

It doesn’t have to be potato chips or dip or soda. It might be a sugared cereal of which you just have half a bowl left, so you go buy another whole box of it, rather than settling for just eating that half bowl, or it could be any of a number of other things. I hope maybe a bag of salad is one of them, but I know that’s a lot less likely.

 We can easily get caught up in a vicious cycle of eating junk food this way. It is a cycle because we are rationalizing that we can’t waste that quarter container of French Onion dip, and there’s no point in eating potato chips without the dip. We can come up with all sorts of rationalizations so we can give ourselves permission to buy more of what isn’t good for us.

Other times, we might rationalize by saying, “I worked really hard today, so I deserve that big bowl of ice cream.” Or we trick ourselves into believing we are going to change our habit so we buy another can of coffee so we can “cut back” on our caffeine intake gradually rather than going cold turkey.

How about striving for balance? When we are out of potato chip dip but we still have some potato chips left, can we compensate with something else, just enough to finish off the chips without having to buy more. Maybe a little salad dressing would work for the few chips left, and then we don’t have to buy more.

 There’s nothing wrong with a little treat, but if there are certain foods like potato chips that you find yourself addicted to, just like you can become addicted to cigarettes or alcohol, it might be best not to buy them. It might be best not to make excuses for why you have to buy them.

And, how about you throw out that half-empty bag of potato chips? I don’t advocate wasting food, but what about wasting your health and your money? You don’t need the potato chips. They cost you money and they add calories you don’t need. It’s okay to throw them away. It’s okay to dump out the little bit of Coke left in the bottle rather than buy a new one.

It’s okay to take action that will help your body to feel better. Do you have some junk food in your refrigerator right now? What if you got up out of your chair this minute and you went and threw it into the garbage? Go do it. You’ll be surprised by how empowering it feels. It’s not wasted money because by throwing it away, you may have saved yourself healthcare costs down the road and you have made a firm decision not to eat it anymore, which can save you countless dollars over time.

The vicious cycle can only end when we put an end to it. Do something deliberate like throwing junk food away as a sign to yourself that you’re ready to take control of your eating habits, and that you are tired of tricking yourself into doing what you know is not good for you, and you’re not going to stand for it anymore.

“And then one day,” my friend said, “when I came home from college and my brother was still in high school, and I had been missing my family a lot, I told my brother I loved him, and his response was, ‘Really, I thought you hated my guts.’ I don’t know what I said to my brother at that point, but I was really surprised by that comment. I thought I had always shown love for him, even if I had been nagging him; I believed I had been doing it for his own good.”

My friend went on to say that he had not realized his behavior toward his brother had actually bordered on bullying, and he remembered times when his younger brother had become so enraged with him that he would strike him, which was also a behavior my friend had never understood.

“Now that I think back on it, I was kind of a jerk to him, and I realize I somehow wanted to prove myself as better than him by asserting myself as superior before our parents. No wonder he thought I hated him and he would get so angry with me.”

The thing is that we don’t always look at our motives before we act, and before we are grown up and have a grip on all of our emotions as well as our egos, we may behave without thinking.

We cannot change the past, but we can heal and soften it. It might not be forgotten, but we can make it no longer reside at the forefront of our relationships with our siblings, or any family member for that matter. We can start today to heal our relationships. If need be, we can make a phone call, write a letter, or meet in person with the other person we bullied or tried to control; we can express our regret and make an apology. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it makes the other person angry, or it is just too awkward to attempt. We can also find smaller, less noticeable, but meaningful advances toward changing a relationship. Giving a hug when you see the person can say more than words. Simple kindnesses or an occasional word of praise can also help.

Whatever happened in the past, it is in the past, and the present offers a new day and a new beginning. Consider today whether your family members’ perceptions of your family’s past are the same as yours or different, and then see what you can do to change those perceptions, and more importantly, the future relationship.

However, sometimes one sibling gets the upper hand and rivalry becomes sibling bullying. Often the oldest sibling, whether a brother or a sister, is the one who gets the upper hand, but the baby of the family might also be the spoiled one who ends up with power over his other siblings, or the boy who is dad’s favorite or mother’s little boy might equally become spoiled and demanding. In these cases, effective boundaries have not been established by the parents to make the spoiled child understand he (or she) cannot have everything he wants, especially at the expense of his siblings. That said, the spoiled favorite may also be, due to jealousy, the victim of bullying, rather than become the bully.

Other times, sibling rivalry turns into sibling bullying, not because the parents have a favorite child, but because the parents are perhaps neglectful of one or all the children.

When a child feels neglected, unloved, or not granted an equal amount of attention as another sibling, the child who is unable to get attention from the parent may resort to taking it out on the sibling. Bullying does not have to be physical, but it can simply be a form of controlling. It could be giving the other child orders; for example, if chores are expected from the children, the older sibling might do the chores quickly and well to please her parents and then hound her younger brother to do his before he gets in trouble, or try to tell him how to do things properly. She might even tattle on her brother to get her parents’ approval and show that she is the good child, the obedient child, or the smart child.

It’s important to remember that the bullying and controlling child is not necessarily a control freak or a bad child. She might actually be codependent, feeling she needs to take control and assert her abilities or superiority because her siblings are incapable of doing what is necessary or her parents are incompetent, or unwilling or distracted from seeing her value. The child needs to get her needs met and prove herself, and bullying and controlling is the only way she has learned to do so.

Whether you are a parent, or a brother or sister, take a look at your family dynamics. Did you have a sibling who tended to bully or control to get approval and attention? If so, has it affected your relationship into adulthood with that sibling? Can you find it in your heart to forgive that sibling and heal the relationship, understanding where he or she was coming from at the time? Perhaps you were the bully. Is there a chance that even as an adult, you continue to bully your siblings, perhaps about things like planning family get-togethers, or dealing with your aging parent’s healthcare? Perhaps you are still trying to compete with your sibling.

If you are the parent and you see one of your children bullying the other, ask yourself what you may be doing that would make your child feel the need to bully or at least compete and assert him- or herself over your other children? Don’t waste time blaming yourself, but instead, take action that will change the situation. What can you do to make all your children feel safe, loved, valued, and capable?

Bullying should not be tolerated, but it also should be understood as a cry for love and attention.

It’s good advice we all should follow. Whether or not you’ve ever watched Lawrence Welk, we could use a few more musical programs on television in place of all the crime and courtroom drama shows (although having worked for the police department at one point in my life, I admit I enjoy watching those shows). But my point is there are times in our lives when we like some drama, and there are times when we need to be lighthearted.

How do you keep a song in your heart? You may have to force yourself, but the best thing is to find a handy tune or two that you really like and that will encourage you when you are down. That will inspire you to get up and follow your dreams, or that will make you so cheerful you want to dance around the house singing all day long. If you saw “The King and I,” you remember Anna telling her son, “Whenever I feel afraid, I whistle a happy tune, and the happiness of the tune convinces me that I’m not afraid.” I recommend that you do the same, whether you feel afraid, angry, lonely, depressed, betrayed, whatever the feeling is, if you whistle or sing a happy tune, it will change your attitude, often in minutes.

Yes, I know I’ve blogged about this topic before. It’s not because I can’t come up with other ideas that I keep harping back to it. It’s because it’s that important. Every now and then, I am again struck by how quickly my mood can change from negative to positive when I have a song in my heart. After just singing along to a song or two, in less than ten minutes, I can go from despairing that the world is a dark cold miserable place determined to destroy me, to believing I am the master of my own destiny and everything good is possible and will come to me and all is right with the world.

It’s possible you haven’t heard a cheery song in awhile. It’s highly possible that you like music that is loud, noisy, depressing, rage-instilling. You might have a hard time finding a positive song. I admit I’m not much for modern music, but hear me out. I’m not being judgmental about the kind of music you like. I’m just asking you to consider how it is affecting your attitude, which affects everything in your life. Try whistling a happy tune.

I know there are wonderful cheery modern songs out there, but here are some classic standard songs and songs from movies and Broadway that many of you will have heard. If you don’t know these songs, Google their titles on YouTube or add “song lyrics” after their names and you’ll easily find the lyrics or even their being sung online. I hope you find one that means enough to you that it will become that song in your heart that you can call on whenever you need it:

• To Dream the Impossible Dream
• The Sound of Music
• Climb Every Mountain
• Everything’s Coming Up Roses
• There Can Be Miracles When We Believe
• A Hundred Million Miracles
• Don’t Rain on My Parade
• Put on a Happy Face
• When April Showers Come Your Way
• Somewhere Over the Rainbow
• Morning Has Broken
• Got a Lot of Living to Do
• Cabaret
• When Irish Eyes are Smiling
• It’s a Grand Night for Singing
• Sing, Sing a Song
• Tomorrow
• Be Like the Bluebird
• Defying Gravity
• Seasons of Love
• For Every Season, Turn, Turn, Turn
• Bridge Over Troubled Water
• You’ve Got a Friend
• Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
• Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
• When You Wish Upon a Star
• I’ve Got Rhythm
• I’m Singing in the Rain
• You’ll Never Walk Alone

But this blog isn’t going to be about Perry or about gay people. It’s going to be about ways that we all “come out.” I think we all understand that “coming out” today generally refers to gay people coming out of the closet, telling people they are gay. That is a difficult moment that can be filled with fear of rejection for them. But “coming out” could be used to describe many situations in our lives.

Whether a person is gay or not, we all have our “coming out” moments in life when we have to admit to something we fear someone else will not like. Sometimes, that means confessing to something we did, or confessing to something about ourselves that we did or think is “wrong” or “bad” because the majority of society perceives it that way. At other times, it is confessing something we know the other individual perceives as wrong. In either case, we fear rejection. We might psych ourselves up to that place where we realize if the other person rejects us, we do not need that person in our lives, but that does not mean that we don’t still want the happier ending to the situation.

If you dislike gay people, I ask you to think about a time when you had a secret to confess and how it made you feel, and then you can perhaps understand where gay people are coming from a bit more.

For example, you might feel the need to confess to your best friend who is a staunch Republican that you are going to vote for the Democratic nominee. It might be that you had an affair and now you need to come clean to your wife. It might be that you are responsible for having broken your mother’s angel figurine that is a family heirloom. It might be that you stole money from your girlfriend to buy drugs. It might be that you need to tell your family you can no longer attend the same church as them. It could be telling your father who wants you to be a dentist that you’ve changed your major in college to music.

The “coming out” confession could be a confession about a wide variety of things. It could be something you did wrong that you want to confess. It could just be a matter of standing up for who you are and deciding not to hide that part of yourself any longer.

Whatever it is, we all have secrets; we all have aspects of ourselves that we are afraid to share with others. We often may be able to share one part of ourselves with a friend with whom we don’t feel comfortable sharing another part, while it may be vice versa with another friend. None of us is perfect, and none of us can expect to be one hundred percent in agreement with anyone else one hundred percent of the time.

I hope if you’ve had one of these “coming out” experiences, it ended positively for you. I hope it taught you something about yourself and that you grew stronger from it, even if it did end up being a negative experience. I hope it taught you something about compassion for others.

When we love someone, and that someone confesses a secret to us, we need to realize the courage it took for that person to speak his or her truth. And we need to realize that person is the same person we have always known. That person has not changed. We just have new information. When your friend of twenty years tells you he is gay, he is the same person he was twenty years ago and whom you have always known. When your mother tells you the deep dark secret she has kept from you for forty years, she is the same mother you have loved all your life. You now have more information but the confessor has always had that information; he or she has not changed, so there is no reason to reject that person.

Yes, there are fine lines, and there are difficulties. What I’m saying is let compassion always be your first response and it will make what follows, whatever it is, easier for both of you.

Some of the miracles the song mentions are that babies learn to walk; that the rivers continue to flow; that poets can put words on a page, a musical friend can set those words to music, and then someone else has the voice to sing the song; that eggs hatch into birds; and that the sun keeps rising.

It’s hard to wrap our minds around it—that a hundred million miracles can be happening every day, but it’s true. In fact, I suspect that number is a very low estimate of how many miracles happen every day. That I am able to write these words on a computer is like a miracle to me when you consider that the technology did not even exist when I was born. That I can post this blog on a website, and it’s possible that a hundred million people could read it, is another miracle. That perhaps someone who needs to read my blog today will just happen to see it and benefit from it is a miracle.

Our lives are filled with miracles. Each night we fall into an unconscious sleep, yet each morning we wake up. The snow falls and covers the earth in winter, and in the spring the sun comes out and melts it away and makes flowers spring forth and the trees to bud. We breathe every day and there is enough oxygen for all of us. That fish can swim in the ocean is a miracle; that birds can fly in the sky is a miracle; that I have two legs that have provided me mobility for decades is a miracle. Everywhere, everywhere we look there are miracles. Life is a miracle!

I know there are times when we all think, “Life sucks.” But for every bad day, every bad moment, there are a hundred million miracles to offset it. Time is one of the greatest miracles. We fret about how we don’t have enough of it, but sometimes, that it moves so quickly is a blessing for us. Time heals all wounds they say, and I’ve found it to be true. Time is itself a miracle. Miracles are all around us. When we realize that, whatever problem we have feels small by comparison.

Miracles are proof that the universe knows what it’s doing. When we think about miracles, we can cease to worry; we can trust that if such enormous, mind-blowing miracles can occur as the birth of a child, the planet revolving, the seasons changing, then whatever we need will be provided for us. It may not be in a form we will recognize at first, and it may not be exactly what we ask for, but you can trust that your miracle will come. When we recognize and believe in miracles, we help them out—because as an old song goes, “Even a miracle needs a hand.”

I know it is winter, but that’s no excuse not to be outside. Here in Texas, it’s almost easier to go outside in winter than summer because the heat makes me more likely to want to stay indoors. When I lived in Canada, however, it was easy to get cabin fever in the winter. But being outside, even in the cold, made a big difference for me. Granted, you don’t want to go out on the days when the wind chill is below zero, but on warmer days when it’s maybe 20, 30, or 40 degrees, you should go out, even if it’s just for a short walk around the block. Whether or not you’re into all that skiing, sledding, ice skating, playing hockey, and snowmobiling, a short walk in the snow will do wonders for your attitude.

Every now and then, I have a day when I feel a bit down or not quite myself, and eventually, I ask myself what’s wrong. Nothing bad has happened that day. Often, I then realize I haven’t been outside that day. It’s easy not to go outside on days when you don’t have errands to do or it’s the weekend and you don’t have to go to your office. My friends who work from home talk about how important it is to get out of the house every day just for their own sanity. And it is important.

As humans, we aren’t meant to be cooped up indoors all the time. Furthermore, we need a breath of fresh air, and we need to get away from the computer, the television, even our family members, to clear our heads for a minute. We need fresh air because we need oxygen. Trees and plants provide oxygen. That’s why we often feel energetic walking in the woods.

Whatever your reason or motivation, go outside today. Make a point of going outside every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. You will be surprised by how it can change your attitude.

As a native of Canada who is now an American citizen, I may not be as knowledgeable about American history as most of my readers and neighbors. And when it comes to Black History, sometimes I almost think that’s a good thing because black history in the United States was less than positive for the first three centuries, and that’s putting it mildly. Slavery did not exist in Canada, and the mistreatment of African Americans was never the issue it has been in the United States. Last spring, I wrote some blogs about the film “The Help,” which provides a picture of black maids in the South in the 1960s. The film was eye-opening to me about the way African-Americans have been treated in this country. White women mistreated the very black women who cooked their meals, cleaned their toilets, and even raised their children. Rather than appreciating those women, they paid them low wages and treated them as little better than slaves, even a century after slavery had ended.

People on the lower rungs of the social ladder usually get little credit. Black people have historically performed much of the more menial work, whether it was picking the cotton that made the South wealthy, working in munitions factories during World War II, cleaning white people’s houses, or any other number of tasks. They were often the backbone of America that kept things going so white people could do whatever they did.

 But African-Americans, just like people of every other nationality and ethnic background who have come to this country, have made their great contributions to this nation. They may not be as famous as their white counterparts, but their contributions have been extraordinary. Here is a very short list of some African-Americans and their inventions that changed this country:

• George Washington Carver—invented peanut butter, as well as developed the use of the soybean for many of the products we use today.
• Elijah McCoy—he invented an oil dripping cup for trains. When others tried to copy him and didn’t do so well, people insisted they wanted “the real McCoy”—the origin of that expression.
• Lewis Latimer—invented the carbon filament in the light bulb.
• Garrett Morgan—invented the gas mask.
• Otis Boykin—invented the electronic control devices for guided missiles, IBM computers, the pacemaker, and several other products.

Each of these inventions changed business and how Americans as well as millions of other people around the world live today. Imagine how terrible war would be without a gas mask, or what the world would be like without peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, not to mention pacemakers.

Even the most racist people in the world benefit daily from the contributions of African Americans, whether they know it or not.

Take time this month to appreciate the contributions of African-Americans, and take the time to think about the contributions of other groups, such as Scandinavian-Americans, Russian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Muslim-Americans, etc. After all, this is the United States and the great melting pot, and we all benefit from the contributions of one another.

Happy Black History Month!