Learning

Now that school's started again, I'm beginning to think about the concepts of learning and teaching a lot harder.  What do those terms mean?  Is it actually possible to teach anyone anything?  I had a professor once who said it wasn't--he said that he couldn't teach us anything.  He could only tell us what he knew, and it was up to us to learn or not.  At the time, I didn't quite get what he was saying--it seemed like a bit of a cop-out, to be honest.  But now I really understand his meaning, and I have to say that I agree with him.

School isn't really about teaching, when all is said and done.  School is about learning, and trying to get kids to want to learn.  If we can accomplish that, then there's a lot that they can accomplish--for learning is something that anyone can do.  But if they don't want to learn, then guess what?  They won't.  It's hard to reconcile that fact sometimes, for the teachers are there to teach, and one of the greatest frustrations of all for teachers is having to deal with students who don't want to learn.

Life is a learning experience, all the way through.  It's actually a series of learning experiences that never ends until the day we die.  And who knows?  There's a good chance it doesn't even end there.

So what have you learned today?  You've had opportunities to learn new things--what have they been?  I hope that when you get the chances to learn, you take them.  It definitely is true that the more we learn--about the world, other people, ourselves--the brighter and fuller we can make our lives.  Teachers are all about us, all the time.  We just have to be receptive learners if we want to take advantage of what they have to offer.

Learning is not attained by chance.  It must be sought
for with ardor and attended to with diligence.

Abigail Adams

Just a Job?

I’ve read and heard a lot of interesting stories about jobs.  I read once about a young man who was a bagger at a supermarket who shared nice thoughts and quotations on small cards that he gave to customers.  I read about a commuter train conductor who gave his passengers a tour every day, describing the areas that they passed and pointing out connector buses that were at each of the stops.  I’ve read about people in all sorts of jobs that turned their work into something more than just a job–they turned it into an enjoyable experience because they took every opportunity they could to do something special for the people with whom they dealt while on the job.

It’s an interesting concept–can we make our jobs more enjoyable by adding our own touches to them?  Can we turn work into a pleasant experience by finding ways to contribute to the lives of others with whom we have contact during our work day?  Perhaps it would be nothing more than an encouraging word here and there to people to whom we normally wouldn’t give encouraging words.  Perhaps we could find some little gift that would be very inexpensive, but that might mean a lot to someone else.  Would a business card with a beautiful saying on it work?  How about a small piece of chocolate or two to share with someone else?  With a little bit of imagination and creativity, we should be able to find something that could brighten someone else’s day, for no reason at all other than just to do so.

A lot of people dread work because of the tedium of the day-to-day job that they do.  But it’s only tedious if we allow it to stay tedious.  With a little bit of thought and care, each of us can turn our jobs into something more, something special.  And if we enjoy our work even more for having done so, well then–all the better, no?

The beauty of work depends upon the way we meet it, whether we arm
ourselves each morning to attack it as an enemy that must be
vanquished before night comes–or whether we open our eyes with
the sunrise to welcome it as an approaching friend who will keep
us delightful company and who will make us feel at evening
that the day was well worth its fatigue.

Lucy Larcom

Explorations

When Bill Watterson ended the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes after many years, the last line that he had Calvin say was "It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy . . . Let's go exploring!"  At the time, I couldn't help thinking that the writer had ended the comic strip in the most perfect way possible--it was a sad ending, but a beautiful beginning, one that none of us readers ever would be able to experience as we had experienced the strip during its years of publication.  I think of that ending sometimes even now, when I think of the idea of exploring in my own world, on my own terms.  I love the words "Let's go exploring," for they indicate an interest in everything, and a willingness to learn about anything and everything, as well as a desire to learn new things about certain things that we never have known anything about before.

I love to explore.  I like to see things that I've never seen, to breathe air in places I've never been, to feel the sunshine in a completely new location.  Exploring to me is the norm of my life, for when I explore I open myself up to learning and to experiencing.  The lack of exploration, to me, is stagnation, and I never want to be stagnant at all.  Life's too short, after all, to sit in one place forever and do nothing new or different.  There are so many things in this world that we haven't seen, and I want to do my best to see all that I can see before I die, to hear all that I can hear and feel all that I can feel before my life on this planet comes to an end.

You and I both can explore all that we want.  We don't have to go to exotic places and explore in the buggy and dangerous wilderness.  We don't have to spend tons of money equipping ourselves and paying for transportation.  All we really need to do is open our eyes and hearts to all that's around us and find the places to explore.  Perhaps you could explore your own desires and find out where they come from and what they mean.  Maybe you could explore a friendship of yours, figuring out just what the terms of the friendship are and just how deep it runs for both of you.  Maybe you could explore a hurting relationship and find out what it may need to heal.

This is a magical world of ours--and we all have wonderful chances to make all that we can out of it.  All we have to do is be open to the idea of exploring the "unknown," looking for the chances to learn and see new things, trying to get all that we can out of all this great world of ours.  So let's go exploring!

Play

I think that it’s a shame that so many adults have forgotten how fun it can be to play.  There are lots of advantages to playing, including allowing our creativity to flow freely, keeping ourselves in shape, lowering the levels of stress in our lives, and just plain having fun without having to justify it or quantify it.  Most of the adults that I know, though, have given up on playing, and they pay a pretty hefty price for the loss.

Play can be one of the most therapeutic and healthy activities that we undertake–given, of course that we find something good and fun to play at.  Play allows us simply to be, without having to do anything special or be anyone special.  There are tons of things we can play at, from cars to house to space exploration, or we can use a game of cards or a board game to allow our playful sides to come out.  As long as we don’t take what we’re playing at too seriously and worry about whether we’re winning or losing, we can have a lot of fun at almost anything we do.  And once we start playing, we find that time slows down, life gets easier, and we end up with something fun to look back on.

I used to go to church picnics and be the only adult playing with the kids.  The other adults would sit around and talk about the same things that they talked about at home and in church, while the kids would be over having fun, playing tag or catch or whatever else they could think of.  I always opted for being with the kids.  I had plenty of time to talk over the same things with the same people, but I didn’t always have opportunities for sharing energy with young people who had plenty of energy to spare.  Having fun and playing allow us to use our energy very productively and very wisely–they have a rejuvenating if we only let them.

Do you have a chance to play today?  I hope that you take that chance and make the most of it.  Play can stimulate your mind and your body and your creativity and your self, and it can give you back much, much more than you give to it.  All you have to do is decide that you want to do it, and it will take you places you had forgotten existed, places that you knew very well when you were young and play was a major part of your life.

The real joy of life is in its play.  Play is anything we do for the joy and love
of doing it, apart from any profit, compulsion, or sense of duty.  It is the real
living of life with the feeling of freedom and self-expression.  Play is the business
of childhood, and its continuation in later years is the prolongation of youth.

Walter Rauschenbusch

Today Is a Beautiful Day

There's no way around it--the world is a beautiful place today.  The sun is shining or rain is falling or the fog is embracing the land with its amazing presence.  There's wind blowing, the rivers are flowing, birds are singing, dogs are wagging their tails and little kids are giggling all over the place.

Perhaps something is happening in our lives that we're allowing to obscure our vision so that we can't see all the wonder and beauty.  If that's the case, then it's up to us to regain that vision, to find the ways that we can see much more, much more clearly.

Perhaps some person or persons are making our lives difficult, keeping us focused on negative things that we don't really want to be thinking about, but we don't seem to be able to avoid keeping our focus on the negative.  If that's the case, then it's up to us to shift our focus to the things that we know will help us to lift our spirits and to keep life in a positive perspective.

There always seems to be something that keeps us from seeing all the amazing beauty.  But right now, you and I both have a choice to make--we can keep on doing what we were in the process of doing, or we can stop, take a deep breath, and relax.  Then we can look around ourselves and see the amazing beauty, the remarkable symmetry, the astonishing complexity, the fantastic simplicity, of virtually everything that is in our worlds.  So many things, natural and man-made, give us so many views of the beautiful place that this planet is, and it would be quite a shame for us to waste such a beautiful day without even noticing the gifts of beauty that are always everywhere--including you!

As I experience it, appreciation of beauty is access to the soul.
With beauty in our lives, we walk and carry ourselves more lightly               
and with a different look in our eyes.  To look into the eyes               
of someone beholding beauty is to look through the windows

of the soul.  Anytime we catch a glimpse of soul, beauty is there;
anytime we catch our breath and feel "How beautiful!," the soul is present.

Jean Shinoda Bolen

Go out and Play

Have you ever stopped to think of advice that you give to other people?  Have you asked yourself sincerely whether or not you follow that advice yourself, or do you just dispense it and forget about it, figuring that the advice is good for someone else, but that you don't need to heed it?  One of the best pieces of advice that we can take ourselves actually isn't even given as advice, but as an order to the kids:  Go out and play!

Most of us could use a bit more play in our lives.  For some reason or another that makes little real sense, most of us give up playing as we grow older.  Most of us seem to think that playing is "for kids," not something that we adults should partake in.  But why not?  Regular play has a lot of very real benefits for us, including improving our health, lowering our blood pressure, helping us to laugh and have fun, helping us to bond with others, and helping us to keep things in perspective.  A good dose of play can help us to see that the problems we've been dealing with are simply problems, and not world-changing conflicts.  Taking the time to play a game or two with friends or family can help us to relax, keeping our stress levels at more manageable heights.

And it matters what you play, too.  Playing a few hands of high-stakes poker isn't really playing at all--it's adding to stress in your life.  A good game of wiffle ball or Frisbee, on the other hand, has many benefits for you as long as you don't take it too seriously, and as long as you enjoy yourself thoroughly.

There's lots of stress in all of our lives.  But that's okay--that's life.  The important question for us to ask ourselves is whether or not we're doing anything to compensate for that stress.  And the next time that you feel a bit overwhelmed, the next time you can't see the light at the end of a tunnel, take the advice that your parents used to give you when you were a kid to maintain their own mental health--Go out and play!  This time, though, do it for you.

We don't stop playing because we grow old;

we grow old because we stop playing!

George Bernard Shaw

My Symphony

To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury;
and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable;
and wealthy, not rich;
to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
to listen to stars and birds,
to babes and sages, with open heart;
to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,
await occasion, hurry never;
in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and
unconscious grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.

William Henry Channing