A Marsha Summers Blog

Now, at 82 years of age, I recall what I learned as a kid  about how I was to behave with simple good manners.  Over the years I’ve observed many changes particularly with the use of technology, Therefore, I decided to see what I might want to consider as what, to me, are simple good manners. 

1. If I use acronyms not familiar to whom I’m talking with, I give a brief description.
2. I feel more comfortable talking to someone on the phone to make a date as sometimes text, voice mail, and answering machines are not seen or heard resulting in miscommunication.
3. If I’m going to be late, it is simple good manners to me to let the person know.
4. Though it’s very difficult, I try to let people finish their sentence and not interrupt yet when I’m on the iPhone with voiceover, Siri tells me lots of information I don’t need and I interrupt her all the time unconsciously creating a habit that it’s okay e. So I need to remember the difference.
5. Due to my blindness I have learned more than ever how valuable it is to be on time for those that are gracious enough to pick me up and take me places I want to go, often very much out of their way.
6. I find it respectful to not berate another for their opinion especially in front of others just because I don’t agree with them rather strongly!
7. If someone seems to deliberately do something that hurts or inconveniences me, I’ve found it valuable not to seek revenge.  I can either originate a kind motion or choose to exclude them from my daily living.  I find criticizing another only hurts me because of the emotion it creates in me and in many cases they are oblivious of how they affect me and others.
8. There is a popular word called snarky and I find that attitude is not simple good manners so I refuse to either express that way or acknowledge people who find it desirable.
9. I remember when I decided it was not simple good manners to gossip about others.  I realized that in doing so, I was unconsciously trying to feel better than them, a case of vanity taking over within.
10. When engaged in conversation, I’ve been working on a simple good manner of letting the other person have an opinion and trying to hear them out—particularly in the 2025 political arena. Often I don’t express my opinion as it can lead to an argument and in an extreme event the separation from friends and family when there is so much more to each of us then the opinions!
11. I recognize that sometimes I want to explain why I did something or why I want something and it becomes annoying to another, so I try to be concise.

In closing, I can see that many of what I learned as simple good manners has disappeared; however, I’ve also discovered that I can’t change anyone.  So what’s left is I can set an example or make a demonstration of what good manners are to me and maybe some will see the value can catch on.  Meanwhile, I can only observe and have agape for them.  Agape is seeing that whatever a person has done, is doing or ever will do, including self, is doing it with what light they have at that moment. They feel it to be right, proper and/or justified.

And if I really want to experience being rude, I practice with spam calls.  I now answer the phone with “Who’s calling” and some get the message and hang up and others I hang up on. 

PS You probably don’t have many experiences being around blind people, but I’ve found simple good manners can be extended to those of us with disabilities and following is a few of those needs.

Blind manners

This part of the blog is extra, but I add it since I’m experiencing blindness in a sighted community.  Many sighted people are uncomfortable and even scared to approach a blind person thereby missing out on some interesting conversation.  So here are some ideas.

If you see a blind person struggling and seeming lost, ask of you can be of assistance.  This happens to me at the gym because I don’t want to sit in someone’s lap by accident and they may not see my cane, so I find the back of the machine and follow it down so I might find a shoulder.

If it is necessary to lead a person, it is helpful for me to hold on to your elbow. That way if one of us trips and falls, we both don’t go down.

If an aisle is not wide enough you can move your elbow toward your back and that tells me without voice to get behind you so I don’t run into whatever’s in the way.

It is well to remember that my fingers and hands are now my eyes, so I may need to touch things and covid created much discomfort around this very natural human connection.

I very often shy away from social situations because I can’t see who’s in the room and so sitting alone is a bit uncomfortable.

If you are speaking to me, please use my name if you can so I know I’m being spoken to.  Refrain please from saying “Can you guess who I am?”  It’s embarrassing and I have many voices to remember.  All my friends and family now are just voices and the joke is that with AI many of the voices don’t have any bodies and are not really human.   For me it’s Siri, voiceover, Alexa, Echo, Ziggy, Jaws and now Meta glasses.  

PSS: So with this age, there are many disabilities.  Living with a deaf person gives me the challenge and opportunity to try to communicate with someone who can’t hear and understand his challenges opposite to mine.

So at any age, we are challenged adjusting with, to us, what is to us simple good manners to those we’re around  –  with their past, present, health challenges and much more.  All this makes it even more valuable to look at the pages within the website and learn how we can be sane and also serve in this manmade world.

As a new little spirit, I – the being named Marsha – was subject to believing that everyone was an authority over me so I needed to heed their suggestions, opinions and conclusions (which included those of parents and religion).  Of course as I grew, my peers created further conflict with their striving to gain independence.

So, by the time I came to the teachings, I didn’t know good from bad in the realm of food and what to eat since all those I asked had differing opinions.

At a workshop, Dr. Bob mentioned an idea of personal taste.  Wow, that encouraged me to check out the opinions of others.

Now one day I discovered a container in the fridge — being blind makes every day an adventure.  I was told they were egg bites and contained egg whites, spinach and a couple other items.  I was also told they weren’t very good. 

But in light of knowing about personal taste, I decided to try them to decide for myself.  I found I did like them.

Very often in the workshops, Dr. Bob says “check out for self”.  These ideas are very valuable to remember and experiment with in our daily lives.  Being what is called “awake” can lessen confusion and help us to discover what is to our advantage.

Have you ever experienced feeling guilty? Did it haunt you? Did you ever question where it came from? Thanks to the teaching ideas, I have a bit more information to expose this miserable-making emotion.

With the 48 basic tapes, we look into ideals and how we have been conditioned by parents, church, school, society and peers as to what’s right, what’s wrong and what’s good and what’s bad about everything and everyone in this manmade world we’re in.

So with these many bits of conflicting ideas, of what ought to be, beliefs and conclusions WE HAVE ACCEPTED conflict between “A” side and “B” side.  There is fertile ground to always feel guilty for not doing the right thing. Unobserved, I have known those who are burdened with guilt and taken it to the grave missing much of the privilege of life here on earth.

Recently I happened upon “Bible and the inner man” – the first segment of tape 6 takes an idea from Ephesians Chapter 5, verse 14.

Dr. Bob gave us another way to look at the message when applying it to the picture of man which is split in two—the “A side being complain, stick up for rights, and blame to get my way.  The “B” side uses the pleaser, quoting accepted authorities and self-improvement.

So with a question asking where it comes from, Dr. Bob said that if something brings up an A side reaction and we express it, we covertly don’t realize that we justified our verbiage or violent behavior.  Now the interesting part.

He defined it as having justified a behavior from being asleep and mechanically reacting with methods from the “A” side of complaining, sticking up for rights or blaming and afterwards the thoughts flip to the self-righteous side of picture of man to berate the self for said behavior used by justification thereby causing much conflict, struggle and resistance with no relief in sight. 

It is to our advantage to see what’s going on and Dr. Bob commented “Have you ever held guilt long enough that it subsided”.

I’ve found one idea that can work on that is having agape for self; but I’ll let you look that up on the website for yourself.

It is a joy to work with the ideas of the teaching that Dr. Bob gave us.  In elementary school and high school we learn the material in the books, regurgitate the material on a test, pass and then promptly forget much of what was taught.  I’ve noticed that many in the teachings parrot the ideas Dr. Bob gave us feeling like that’s doing the work.

Three ideas that have stuck with me from transcribing many of the workshop tapes are:

I’ve found a way that is new for me since experiencing being blind.  I’m learning Braille and have a Perkins Brailler with which to write and practice Braille.

1. We are the what and X is the how.

I so often hear others say, if God would just tell me what to do, I’d do it.  Dr. Bob said that’s upside down.  So I experimented with that one and found it to be very valuable.  Repeating that – we are the what and X is the how. 

       2. In the “48  tapes” somewhere it is said we only need to report and observe what’s going on and do it passively to X. 

We can observe what’s going on in our external world, but more valuable is observing what’s going on in the mind that gets us stuck.  He even gave us a place to look with the picture of man and the idea of the four dual basic urges.

      3. And he said we could talk to God/X every day.  We each can find our way and many do it through meditation.

I’ve started using the Brailler every morning and writing a letter to X/Dr. Bob just writing what from the previous day was a challenge or what’s happening or I’m going to encounter.  It seems a bit strange  and one sided as I type a letter to an invisible Being, but the benefits have been very interesting and can only be experienced by doing the work whether by cursive, computer or as I do it.

As an example and demonstration I offer this:

A couple of years ago the eye doctor dilated my eyes to check the eye condition.  That night I awoke with such pain in my head that I thought my head would burst.  I had no idea what was going on, but something inspired me to call the eye doctor.  It was discovered that I had a glaucoma attack.  It was an emergency and the eye doctor had me come in and with a laser poked holes in the cataract so there was circulation.  He said it could never happen again.

Fast forward to a new eye doctor who insisted on dilation.  The upcoming appointment gave me much distress and so I took it to the Brailler the morning of the appointment.  I wrote of my previous experience, my fears and confronting the staff.

As I was being led to the room of dilation, I asked the nurse if I could tell her a story saying that I was afraid that the previous doctor had only done the left eye and just knew it was going to happen again.  She looked at my file and said, “No honey, he did both eyes and he’s correct, it can’t happen again.”  I burse out in tears. 

This nurse had experience helping her elderly mother and therefore worked with me instead of just doing the routine work without considering my state of being.  When that happened, she said “God sent you to me.”  Hum. Now isn’t that interesting.

It is an ongoing trip of learning ways to communicate with our creator and it is also valuable to be aware of the answers and experiences that come about after the work we do.

Thoughts go through the mind in a flash and then are gone if we let them go especially those of anger, guilt, fear, and insecurity, noticeable when we are anxious.  They take us away from the present and what is going on right now.

Throughout the 48 tapes and workshops there is reference to opinions, conclusions, beliefs and facts.

Dr. Bob mentions that the only thing that cannot be argued about is facts.  If it’s raining, it’s a fact.  Facts dwell in the present moment.  Facts change quite quickly without notice.  At the present moment a dog is barking.  And as I write this, the dog is not barking.

I’ve observed that whenever I say or hear the words, “I think”, it refers to an opinion from a mind that has not or cannot check it out.   I’ve observed long arguments over opinions.

Whenever I say or hear “I know”, it refers to a conclusion that is rigid and unchangeable.  When one comes to a conclusion, one stops checking it out or is no longer open to more or different information.

When was the conclusion accepted and from what?  Are conclusions facts?

Whenever I say I believe, it refers to something such as the internet, or someone I’ve made into an authority.  Authority simply means author of, and another idea from the teaching is that authorities tell us what to think; and we’re grown up now and we   have the ability to think for ourselves using experimenting, observing and ultimately re-evaluating anyone or anything we’ve accepted as authority.

It is well to remember that we are 100% subject to suggestion 100% of the time.  So it behooves us to pay attention and listen for these three red flags not only from other; but also from our own mind and mouth.

Fact is fact, and fact cannot be argued over, it defies opinion, conclusion or belief.

Another set of arguments and dickering can result from something Dr. Bob called personal taste.  Ah ha, we each have personal taste in activities, nutrition, friends, music. The list goes on and on.  I do notice everyone loves to share their personal taste with me and all they want is for me to agree with them, so I just coo and say “okay”.  That’s usually enough.

Think about it.  What if everyone liked country music—what would happen to classical music, jazz, ragtime, reggae, rap and the like.  What an interesting experiment it could be to listen to the news.  Without opinion, conclusion and belief; the news would have to go back to the old days when it was about 15 minutes in the morning and a half hour at night.   Perhaps we all would be a lot less anxious.

[Yep, I make things important from tiny to what I see as monumental.  However, John B. found this little exercise and sent it to me today. Can I remember and experiment with it?]

From Part 1 Lake Whitney-94 workshop

“Well it’s because that’s your habit and nature is to make things important. And if you pay attention to it and don’t make it important for a few minutes, you’re a little stronger. You don’t make it important for another few minutes a little later, you get a little stronger. And as I said to Bernie, you can pretty soon go five minutes and then five hours, and five days, five weeks and you can go forever without makin’ anything important. I can assure you of that because I’m livin’ it. I’m doin’ it, I don’t know… I’m no better than anybody else.”