Little Gifts

As the season for gift-giving comes upon us once more, we start to think a lot about gifts, those we're going to give, and those we're going to get.  As we grow older, hopefully, we focus more on the former than the latter, though that isn't always the case.  In the eyes of many people, gifts follow a simple rule:  the bigger the better.  Speaking realistically, though, that rule is far from valid.  In my life, I've found that the most important gifts that I've given and received have been the small ones that have special meaning.

When I sit at my desk and work, I always have around me plenty of small gifts that I've received from friends and students.  They do a great job of reminding me of people who have been a very important part of my life, and because they're small, they can go with me anywhere and I can keep plenty of them.  The memories of the people and the times I spent with them are much more important to me than the objects themselves, but the objects have the ability to refresh my memory of pleasant times at just a quick glance.

Even as I write, I see a small inch-high globe that a former student gave me at her graduation, and I remember how good she felt on that day.  I see a small dream catcher made out of colored pipe cleaners, and I remember the day at camp when one of the campers gave it to me as a gift.  There's also a small glass fish that my wife bought me when she was in the Bahamas, and I know how good it felt to know that someone was thinking about me when she was in such a lovely place.

The small gifts are the ones that keep me going, the ones that give me a great feeling inside.  They're the ones that let me know that someone tried to consider what I liked, and what would be most appropriate for me.

The same goes for when I give gifts--I try to find the small ones that are special to someone, the ones that show that I've considered who they are and what they would like.  From time to time I've bought the large gifts, but as time goes on I see that they don't have nearly the effect that the smaller ones do.

When we think about what kinds of gifts we're going to give this season, we always can choose to go for the gifts that are more special rather than the gifts that are more expensive of just plain big.  The most special gifts have nothing to do with money or size; rather, they reflect the fact that we've been thinking seriously about the recipient and what they would truly want to receive.  I would much rather get a small, cheap gift that shows that someone was thinking about me than a large expensive gift that's meant to impress me somehow.

Many people ruin their enjoyment of receiving gifts by allowing their expectations to blur their vision, not allowing themselves to see just how great a gift is because it might not be what they wanted, or it might not be big enough or special enough.  During this holiday season, we have choices to make on what types of gifts to give to others, and finding the very special ones is a great way to make the holidays special.  Likewise, we have choices to make as to how we react to gifts given to us by others, and we can make our holidays much brighter by recognizing how special gifts are.

Diversity

We all have been given an amazing gift on this planet, and that gift lies in the differences between us.  The perspectives that each person has are completely unique to each individual--even though we often decide to share certain things with others with whom we live--and if we truly respect those differences and try to learn what they are, they can teach us new and exciting ways of seeing our world.  When we decide that someone else is simply "wrong" because they don't see the world as we see it, then we close off any chances that we have to learn from them, instead becoming victims of our own ignorance and judgment. We have many, many lessons in nature and art that show us quite clearly that diversity is much more to be desired than conformity.  What would a painting look like if every color were the same, if it weren't given the opportunity to work with the other colors to stand out next to this one, to complement this other one, to create its own message?  One of the reasons that flowers are so beautiful is because they have subtle differences that distinguish them from each other, even when they look similar at first glance--and they always have the green of their leaves and stalks to complement the colors and shapes that they show the world.  And what if all our foods tasted the same?  We accept fully the fact that our foods should taste different, but somehow we find it disturbing or uncomfortable that other human beings should see the world differently from us. Just as many threads work together to form a beautiful tapestry or the many blocks make up a quilt, it takes many individuals to make up a community.  We've come to believe somehow that the fewer differences in opinion or perspective we have among members of communities, the fewer problems we'll have in those communities.  Because of this mistaken belief, we've striven to keep our communities stable by keeping out people who might be "different" from us.  We've even created myths or rumors to share with others so that the others also will believe that it would be bad to let these people into our communities.

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place. Margaret Mead

And just what do we lose when we keep people out of our lives because of their skin color, religious beliefs, or ethnic heritage?  Mostly, we lose the opportunity to learn from someone else who sees the world in different ways.  We lose the chance to learn from rich cultural heritages that these people have spent their lives learning from, and that they can now pass on to us. Think about it this way:  If four people from completely different backgrounds were to get together for the very first time and have only twelve hours to spend together, what would be the best way for them to spend their time? Should they spend those twelve hours discussing life and lessons that they have learned about it, learning from each other as they do so? Or should they spend those twelve hours telling why what they think is right, and arguing that what the other three think is wrong? When we're faced with diversity in thought and perspective, we often spend so much of our time trying to prove that our perspective is the "right" one that we don't take the chance to learn about other perspectives, and perhaps even modifying our own perspectives a bit based on what we learn. One small example in my life was that as I grew up in America, I learned that it's perfectly fine to use the insult as humor, trying to make other people laugh by insulting someone.  Five years in Europe, though, taught me that this kind of humor is really mean, not funny--and the laughter that comes from it is based more on fear and feelings of superiority than it is on humor.  Because of what I learned by living in other cultures, I've been able to make important decisions about how I relate to other people, and that has made a huge difference in my life.

When you're finally up on the moon, looking back at the earth, all these differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend and you're going to get a concept that maybe this is really one world and why the hell can't we learn to live together like decent people? Frank Borman

To me, diversity is not about race or ethnic origin--I believe that these are artificial distinctions that we make between human beings in order to differentiate ourselves from others based on the most superficial of criteria.  Where humanity is concerned, skin color means nothing; country of origin means nothing, even gender means nothing.  Yes, there are certain traits that we develop as Russians or Algerians or Australians, or as men or women, but the truth is that in each body of each human a heart is beating, lungs are functioning, and a brain is calculating and considering and dreaming. Diversity, rather, is a question of the ways that we see and share the world, the ways that we react to stimuli and create the lives that we're living.  Much of the way that we see the world has to do with traits that we've adopted from those people who live around us, and therein lies what we see as "cultural" differences.  But those differences are not inborn in us--rather, they are adopted by us as we grow.  They can be extremely valuable and helpful in understanding other people, but they truly don't define us as human beings.  We tend to use them as our measure of diversity, though, because they're easy to see and to quantify and to understand. True diversity lies in our uniqueness, the aspects of ourselves that are truly ours alone, the ways that we understand life and living and our relationships with other human beings.  We see this true diversity not by looking at the skin, but by looking in the eyes and realizing that those eyes are the windows to a soul, an amazing being who is different than us, and who can teach us a great deal if we only take the chance to listen.

Some people do things completely differently from the way you would do them.  It does not mean that they are right or that you are wrong. It means that people are different.  There are things that people say which you would probably say in a different way, at a different time. It does not mean that people are wrong to speak up, to speak out, or to speak their minds.  Nor does it mean that you are wrong for choosing not to do so.  It means that people are different.  Different is not right or wrong.  It is a reality.  Differences become problems only when we choose to measure ourselves by our difference in an effort to determine who is right and who is wrong. Iyanla Vanzant

Our cultures and societies are richer and stronger for diversity, not weakened by it.  We will truly benefit from that diversity, though, only when we completely accept the fact that other human beings see life in ways that are different from our ways.  We aren't on this planet to make other people think and feel and act just like we do--we're here to work with others to help to make this world a more positive and more loving place. We now spend a huge amount of time trying to convince others that our ways of seeing the world are right, and theirs are wrong.  Think about how much we could get done together if we were to stop spending time this way, and instead spend time working together constructively to actually accomplish things that help other people to live their lives in more positive ways.  The shame of not accepting others for who they are and what they believe is that we limit our own potential concerning what we can accomplish in the short time that we're here on this planet.

Be Good!

I like the words "good" and "goodness."  They're simple words packed with meaning, and almost no two people in the world would agree on just what they mean.  Many people even disagree whether people's actions are motivations are good in their depths or if they're good on the surface.  For example, if a person gives a certain amount of money to a charity to avoid allowing his or her spouse to get that money in a divorce settlement, is the act a good act, or a selfish act?  It may be good that the charity gets the money, but many people want to stop there and not think things through more thoroughly--is it good that the charity gets money that the spouse might have needed desperately, but is now denied?

In such a case, one person's good is another person's bad.  Do the two sides balance out?

I believe that for an act or motive to be good, it truly has to be pure.  In other words, if I do a kind act for a neighbor, it's truly good only if I have absolutely no expectations of any sort of reciprocal benefit.  If I encourage someone, I have no expectations of any sort of thank you or other sign of gratitude.  I do it simply because I know that it's good and because I want to do good.

Because you see, if I do something "good" for you and expect your gratitude or some sort of reward in return, then I'm creating an obligation for you, one that you probably neither want nor need.  And if you don't fulfill that obligation, the results can end up being anger, frustration, and resentment on both of our parts--and how can such a result even remotely be considered good?  And if it ends up with such results, then the "good" of the original action was simply an illusion, not a truth.
So if I want to be good--and I do, even if I'm not sure what it means--I need to be aware of my motives and my desired outcomes for any action that I take.  Am I doing this just because I want to do something good?  If so, there's a good chance that the action I take is, in fact, good.

Being and doing good, I think, is mostly a matter of heart, and much less a matter of mind.  In our hearts, we know when we're doing good and we know when we're doing something to benefit ourselves, and it's important to listen to our hearts when they speak to us.  If we do this, we can be much more sure that what we're doing is, indeed, good.  I may help a neighbor with something to make her feel obligated to send a plate of cookies my way the next time she bakes, but my heart will know that my motive is not pure.  My heart will know it if I'm helping just to help, with no attempt to make her feel obligated.

And if a plate of cookies does appear without any attempt to make her feel obligated, then there's another good act in this world.  If she sends over the cookies because she knows I'm expecting them for having helped her, then just how "good" is her act?

There are, of course, acts that count as mutual goods.  Perhaps my co-worker is having a hard time with a certain task, and it ends up being my task at the end of the day.  Teaching him or her how to do the task and do it well is good for that person and for me, as I'll no longer be expected to take on that task, and I can focus on my own work.

When we examine our motives for doing the things we do, we start to change as people.  When we start to try to do good for the sake of good and not for any potential benefits, we start to become good people in our core, at heart.  When we start to be good, then we start to do things for motives that are much more pure, and we start to strengthen and reinforce the good that is in us.

A good person doesn't need to have ulterior motives for doing things--that person knows that when we do good, we greatly improve the quality of our own lives.  When we're good to other people, we strengthen the world and we strengthen ourselves, and we give the others a bit more faith in the goodness of life and humanity.  Goodness helps to destroy cynicism, and it helps others to see the world more brightly.  Being good helps us to avoid many kinds of stress, the kind that comes from fearing being caught doing something we shouldn't do or saying something we shouldn't say.

I want to be good, and I want to do good.  It isn't always easy, though, for there are almost always conflicting motives in the way of doing good.  Yes, I can help this person, but there's a cost of time.  Yes, I can do that good thing, but it will cost money.  That's definitely a good thing to do, but it's risky--I'll risk failure and I'll risk being criticized.  And saving time and money, of course, are two of out stronger desires as people, as is the avoidance of failure and criticism.  But the stakes are very high--do I want to look back five years from now and think of all the good I didn't do because of my fear, or all the good I did do in spite of my fear?  To me, the answer to that question is very obvious, and it's within my power--with every decision that I make--to answer it with the knowledge that I did, indeed, do every good I could.

Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in

the inward thing we are.  To be good is the great thing.

Edwin H. Chapin

Competence

Many people feel that once they get a certain job, that's it--there's nothing more to learn that can't be learned while they're working.  They might have taken two or four years of college courses to earn a certain degree, but now that they're earning a paycheck, the days of spending time studying the field are long gone.  "If I don't learn it at work," they seem to think, "then I don't need to know it."

And perhaps they're right.  It's possible that there are many things about their careers that they don't necessarily need to know.  But why is it that we so often choose not to learn more about the very work that we're getting paid for, while we were so willing to study as much as was asked for us while we were hoping and praying to find work in the first place?

The truth is that most people don't push themselves very hard even when they're taking the courses necessary to get the jobs they want.  Most people are satisfied with meeting the minimum requirements in order to get by, get their diploma or certificate, and move on with their lives.  This is one of the reasons for which it's often so difficult to find well qualified people to promote into important leadership roles:  very few people have distinguished themselves as leaders in their fields, preferring instead simply to get along with doing what's required of them, and little else.
There are a few very interesting truths, though, about striving to be more than just competent in our work.  First of all, it seems that the more we learn about our work, the easier and the more interesting it becomes to us.  Tasks that used to be tedious now make sense, and we see how they're related to other elements of our jobs.  Plus, they're easier to take care of now, so they don't bother us nearly as much when we need to do them.  When we know more about our work and its ramifications, we can see the connections between what we do and the effects that those things have on other people.

Secondly, as we become more competent, we accomplish more and we're able to branch out and include other things in our work.  As a teacher, for example, I find that the more I know about the topic I'm teaching, the more I'm able to pull in material from other realms.  As I become more competent at teaching Speech classes, I find it easier to relate material from other fields, such as Biology or History, to the material that we're studying in Speech.  I no longer have to stick to the base material, for I'm able to bring more to my students.

Thirdly, when we take the time to learn more about what we're doing, we're putting ourselves in the position of being more qualified than others when it comes time for promotions or advancement.  Very often, pay raises are based on job performance, and it's almost impossible to raise our knowledge level about our work without also raising the level of our performance.

Of course, there are some jobs that may not require competence above certain levels.  When I worked at the front desk of two hotels, my job was clearly defined and I didn't need to know much more than what I did.  However, there were other areas of the hotel that ran independently of the front desk, and I always had opportunities to learn about those.  Also, there were always new things to learn about the area surrounding the hotel, so if someone were looking for things to do or places to visit, there was always more to learn, and I could be much more helpful to the guests when I took the time to learn about the area.

Our culture doesn't seem to value competence as much as it used to.  Now we seem to want to do and get everything as quickly as possible, which often leads to mediocre work and products.  It seems to be the exception to find people at stores and businesses who are actually able to help us thoroughly with whatever problems we may have.  We accept poor service and poor workmanship as if we deserve it--and when we decide to make a stand about something, it usually has to do with price or rudeness, but not about competence.

Nowhere have I seen this as strongly as I have in our schools.  There are many, many wonderful teachers out there, but there are also a lot of people who are not at all competent in their jobs, yet they keep getting rehired and even rewarded for making it through a certain number of years, whether or not they've made any effort at all to address their own lack of competence.  I've known quite a few teachers who do little teaching at all--they simply hand out packets to their students and have them work on their own while the teacher works at his or her desk, often searching the Internet for this or that, but certainly not engaged actively with the students.

Competence is a choice, purely and simply.  And it's a choice made over and over again--the choice to read another book this week about my career field, to register for a course related to my work, to spend some extra time researching a topic that will help me to be better at what I do.  And it's a choice that may not show immediate dividends--it may take years to see the results of my efforts to be really good at what I do.  Even after more than twenty years of teaching, I took two courses this past year and went to several seminars of three days each over the summer, simply because I need to add to my knowledge, even after all this time.  I simply want to be good at what I do because I know that the people I work for--in my case, high school students--will be the ones who benefit from my abilities.  And they deserve me to be the best I can be at what I do.  I'll never be the best teacher ever, of course, but I can certainly try to be better this year than I was last year.

I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age

of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.

Billy Joel

Beware!

It's interesting that we use this word mostly to warn people of dangerous things that could harm us.  It's pretty obvious just from looking at the word that it's a combination of two words:  be (ben in Middle English) + aware or wary, which means watchful, cautious, or alert.  It's one of my favorite words of all, because it doesn't just mean to be cautious of danger to me--it also means to pay attention to all of the little things of life, those little things that we so often tend to overlook, but which definitely have the potential to harm us in many different ways.

It's important for us to keep this word in mind all the time, for it's important that we be wary of our own actions, thoughts, and beliefs.  Only when we're fully aware of what we're doing or thinking can we start to recognize the cause and effect relationships between what we do and think and the quality of our lives.  All of us want to improve the quality of our lives--and I'm not speaking of striving to achieve luxury or ownership, but striving to become happy and fulfilled.  The only way that we can make such an improvement, though, is to be sure that we know what we're doing in the first place.

For example, it took me a long, long time to realize just how much my beliefs about myself and relationships were hurting me.  I've always tried to be a nice person, but that never helped me much when it came to developing relationships with other people.  The most dominant element of who I was as far as relationships were concerned was my fear--and that fear came from the belief that other people didn't want to be with me, and would end up hurting me if somehow they ever were with me.  This is a fear that's quite common for people who grew up with an alcoholic parent, but one that I truly wasn't aware of, and that I could not be wary of as long as I wasn't aware of it.
There are many things that I need to be wary of in life, for they tend to creep up on me and affect my life in negative ways.  For example, I need to beware of my ego, for it often affects the ways that I treat other people, and the ways that I go about doing certain things--and it also affects my decisions when it comes to being honest or not.  How many times have I wanted to say "I didn't do that" when I actually had, just because my ego doesn't want to admit that I might have failed or done something poorly?

I need to beware of my own assumptions, especially those concerning other people.  When I make such assumptions, I stop trying to learn about others, for I think I already know what I need to know.  But I don't.  What we know about other people and their thoughts and feelings is almost nothing; when we assume that we do know about them, then we stop learning about them.  We also more than likely will miss many things that could be very important to us--when I assume that a book's going to be no good, for example, I never give myself the chance to find out whether it is or not.  I can also hurt other people when I assume that they don't want a certain something, so I pass on the chance.

I need to beware of my tendency to take things for granted.  I have many things in life that are very important to me, and I need to be thankful for everything.  Once I take something for granted--especially other people--then I see less value in that thing or person, even though it's still just as valuable as ever.  The problem is with me, in not seeing that value any more.  When I refuse to recognize and appreciate that value, though, my life becomes somewhat poorer, and it's a poverty that can and should be avoided simply by being mindful that yes, this person is valuable to me, and I should appreciate the person and his or her contribution to my life, no matter how small that contribution may be.
I need to beware of my feelings, and especially I need to beware of acting based on those feelings.  My feelings are often based upon patterns of thought that I developed long ago, and they very often are inappropriate or inaccurate now that I'm a much older person than I was when they started.  When I was very young, I might have learned to shut down when someone said something mean or insulting to me, for I thought as a kid that doing so would make the hurt feelings better.  That was never true, though--first of all, feeling hurt was my choice, though I didn't know it then, and now I have different choices to make regarding my feelings.  If someone says something mean or insulting to me today, I see that as a reflection of that person, and no longer a reflection of me.  My feelings have already caused enough damage to me in my life, and I need to beware of their undue influence upon my state of mind.

It's very important that I beware of my fear, for this is an aspect of who I am that has almost never served me well.  It's caused me to lose potential relationships, to miss out on things that could have been fun and rewarding, to feel badly about myself, to avoid situations that could have been beneficial to me.  Of course, fear can be helpful as an indicator of danger sometimes, but most often, my fear is simply of how things may turn out badly later--not of how things are or how things are really going to be.  My fear has been the cause of many hours of pain and grief, and I don't want to continue to give it that kind of power over me.

And on a very superficial level, I need to beware of the people on this planet who do their best to improve their own lives by hurting others.  I need to be aware of scams, of thieves, of liars, of cheats.  Fortunately, there are relatively few of these people, and I can be aware of what they do and how they do it in order to avoid falling prey to their plans and techniques.  Also on a superficial level, I need to beware of cars when I cross the street, of standing too close to the edge of things, of sharp objects, of stove burners that are hot, of food that is old and moldy, and of many other things that can harm me if I'm not careful.  But these are things that I notice in certain situations, and not things that I need to be paranoid about during every waking hour.
It's necessary to beware of some things, but we don't want to live our lives being always wary of things--we need to spend our lives being appreciative of things, being mindful of the beauty and wonder of the world, not afraid of the dangers of the world.  I can be wary of the dangers of a mountain path where there may be bears or mountain lions and still take that path and still enjoy myself--being aware of possible problems does not mean that we don't completely avoid a certain activity or place or person.  I can have a friendship with a thief, even, as long as I'm careful not to expose too much of what I have to that person.

So beware.  Beware of the things about yourself that keep you from living fully.  Don't let them control your life--use them for what they do give you that's positive, but don't ever allow them complete control.  Be aware of the potential problems that they can cause and do your best to avoid those problems, but remember that those parts of yourself never should define who you are or how you live.  Your full life is up to you, and the ways that you live it.

Intolerance

If humans are to survive, we will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between people and between cultures. We will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear.   -Gene Roddenberry

* * *

It frightens me--and makes me very sad--to see how little tolerance we have in our country for people who are different than we are, for people who think differently than we do.  Somehow we've grown to let our fears do our thinking for us, fears that people who do things differently than we do somehow will force us to do things differently ourselves. We're afraid that the world of tomorrow will be different than the world of today because people who are different than we are are going to change that world.

It's pretty obvious, though, that the world of today is much different than the world of yesterday.  Changes are happening, constantly.  They always have, and they always will.  If we could accept this fact and come to expect it, even, we might find that we're not so afraid of changes--and we may come to accept and love the people we know who do and think differently than we do.

This doesn't mean, of course, that we blindly accept differences just because they're different.  I will never be tolerant of a person who wishes to harm other people for no reason other than his or her own gain.  I can't accept racism or gender bias or any approach that attempts to put other human beings at a lower level--but which ends up putting the racist person at the lower level. But legitimate differences, such as religious beliefs or political ideals, should be a way for us to learn from each other, not a source of disdain for each other.

Our current political world shows almost a complete lack of tolerance for opposing views. The people in positions of power are modeling behaviors and attitudes that can only harm others, and almost never help anyone except the people who agree with them politically and ideologically. What is it that makes us be so intolerant of the ideas of others? What makes us intolerant of their beliefs? Of their racial and ethnic origins? Wise person after wise person has told us that the cause of our intolerance is fear, and the fear that causes us to be intolerant also makes us incapable of learning from these people who have so much to offer us, if we can only find ways to accept it in the spirit of love and compassion instead of looking upon them in the spirit of judgment.

Take the risk and find ways to be not just tolerant, but accepting and loving, and you'll find that your new-found ability to reach out and love will turn your life into a much brighter, much more fulfilling experience.

Making Decisions

There's no football for me this year. All my life I've watched a lot of football games in the fall, but this year I won't be doing so. It's not because of anything in particular, just a result of the growing commercial nature of the professional and college levels, paired with the lack of high expectations of the players in both areas. Football has become a completely commercialized endeavor that has lost the fun, in my eyes, as it's embraced money and exposure. Rules tend to be enforced on a selective basis, and often it's hard to understand just how one player can be penalized harshly for something that another player received no penalty for at all. And on a societal level, the players are still being idolized, to a greater extent now than they ever were when I was growing up. The full explanation of why I'm not watching would probably take pages, so I won't go into all the details; this season, though, I won't be watching any football.

When all is said and done, it won't be a big loss--I've always been a casual observer at best. I don't have any real favorite teams, I rarely really cared who won or lost, and I couldn't name more than two or three players on any given team. So it's not like I'm giving up an addiction that controlled my life.

But what does that have to do with living my life fully? It's simple--over the past few seasons, I've been feeling a growing sense of discomfort as I've watched games. I've been feeling that I've been spending too much time watching something that hasn't contributed any true meaning to my life, and during that time I've been neglecting things that really do add meaning. And when I added in my discomfort with the extreme commercialization of the sport, I was experiencing a growing sense of cognitive dissonance as I watched the games. I simply started to feel that I was wasting time that would be much better spent doing other things that involved people who are actually a part of my life rather than focusing my attention on a large group of people whom I will never even meet, much less who will ever be a part of my life.

This is a choice that isn't for everyone. There are those who like the games and who don't mind the inequities that they see--after all, they give them a chance to argue with others about penalties and such. There are those who don't mind the way that we're teaching our young people to idolize athletes. And there are those who simply enjoy watching the games--which used to be me. Now that I've made the decision, I feel a sense of relief and a sense of freedom that I didn't feel before when the season rolled around each September. I know that my autumn now is going to be filled with time with friends, time spent with kids, time spent relaxing, time spent working, but not time spent watching games and getting frustrated with the whole drama.

For me, right here and right now, at this point in my life, this is the right decision to make--I feel it very strongly. And I'm looking forward to carrying out that decision and focusing on things that are truly important, like relationships and learning and paying attention to my here and now, and not a three-hour game that truly has absolutely no effect on any aspect of my life.