No More "Should Be's"

If you can accept the flow of life and give in to it, you will be accepting what is real.  Only when you accept what is real can you live with it in peace and happiness.  The alternative is a struggle that will never end because it is a struggle with the unreal, with a mirage of life instead of life itself.    -Deepak Chopra

Where do we get the idea that life "should" unfold in certain ways?  How do we come to think that our actions should have certain results, and that other results are somehow "unacceptable"?  It seems pretty clear that as we grow up, we're taught some things that simply aren't true, and we're left to make our own conclusions as to how life works.  We're also taught that control is very important, and that we should have control over our lives if we're to be successful.  Unfortunately, though, we seem to have been taught incorrectly and inaccurately, and many of us have reached a point at which we're unable to accept things that affect us strongly, and we cause our own misery--and can make other people miserable--by refusing to accept certain things.

I just read a very long article on a couple whose son is gay.  They spent years trying to "deal with" this "problem," rather than accepting him as he was.  During those years, they isolated and alienated their son, and they were constantly stressed out and unhappy because of this glitch in their lives.  After all, their son was supposed to grow up, get married to a nice woman and provide some nice grandchildren, wasn't he?  And since their expectations weren't being met, they refused to accept the truth that was there right in front of them.  And because they were unwilling to accept that truth, they spent years being very unhappy people.

I admire this couple, though, because they did eventually accept their son.  And not just that, but they started support groups for people in similar situations, helping them to accept something in their lives that they hadn't expected or foreseen.  And their acceptance, unfortunately, was a mixed blessing--they were able to re-establish a strong relationship with their son, but many of the people that they knew--and especially people from their religion--started to reject them because they were no longer rejecting their son and his supposed "deviant" sexuality.

And we don't even need to get into the discussion of what's right and what's wrong as far as sexuality is concerned.  The simple fact of the matter is that people are as they are, and we can either accept them and be a friend to them, or keep them out of our lives.  It's complicated, though--my brother was a very violent alcoholic while he was still alive, and the question I had to ask myself was whether or not I wanted him to be a part of my life.  Should I accept him as he was, or accept the fact that his violence made him a danger to both my wife and me?  I went with the latter because I had spent my whole younger life growing up with a violent alcoholic as a father, and I didn't want to continue dealing with an alcoholic in my life.  And I certainly didn't want my wife to have to deal with that sort of thing, either.

So I accepted his alcoholism, and I accepted the fact that his lifestyle made him completely incompatible with our lifestyle.  As painful as it was, I accepted the fact that I basically had to keep my brother at a distance if I was to have peace in my life (my mother wasn't able to accept that fact, and she went through a lot of hell over many years because of it, unfortunately).  And because of my acceptance of a situation--instead of trying to change it, or change his behavior--I was able to find some peace and also keep my wife and me safe when he happened to be drinking heavily when we lived near him.

Deepak calls it a "mirage of life," meaning that we see what we think life should be or could be, and we want to make that a reality rather than accepting the reality as it is.  The mirage for me would have been to think "I can have a great relationship with my brother even though he gets drunk often and threatens people."  It couldn't have happened, though--he kept on drinking heavily until he died, and he didn't let anyone get close to him.

I had a friend once who got laid off from a job of thirty years.  He didn't whine or mope, though, and he never said "That's not fair."  Rather, he accepted his new situation fully, and he and his wife sold their home and moved to a place they had always wanted to live, and they ended up quite happy, enjoying their new lives in their new home.

It's easy to start thinking, "This is how life should be."  It's easy to start trying to make things different than they are because after all, if we can change this person or change this situation, then everything will be just fine."  Right?  Personally, I really love the perspective that Lao Tzu offers us when he tells us that accepting life as it is, is one of the most important steps that we can take to put ourselves in tune with life (or the Tao).

What is real is simply what is.  Much of what is bothers us, concerns us, frustrates us, annoys us, frightens us.  But we'll never be able to deal with what is until we accept what is, and until we allow it to be what it is without condition.  We may want to change what is, but even then, we can change nothing until we accept completely what it is.  And that is a challenge that's well worth the effort, for as Deepak says, our peace and happiness are at stake.

Are We Mistaken?

We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.    ~Tom Waits


Our addiction to information is starting to frighten me, not in the least because so many people don't understand the difference between knowing information and having wisdom, between knowing a fact (or even a supposed fact) and understanding life and living and other human beings with whom they share the planet.  There's a huge difference between knowing that 2 + 4 = 6 and knowing how to talk to other humans, but many people these days feel that the fact that they can access information online makes them capable and competent people. The truth of the matter is, though, that many people these days don't have the slightest idea of how to comfort someone who's sad; don't understand that they have the potential to affect other people in negative ways; aren't able to pass on knowledge to others because they actually have little to no knowledge of their own.

How many people can tell you their favorite player's batting average or quarterback rating, but have no idea what kinds of things their own kids are afraid of, or what they aspire to be one day?

What does this mean to us as people?  It means that we're stuck in societies that are growing progressively less human and humane.  It means that when we need help from others, we're going to have a very hard time finding someone who actually has the knowledge necessary to deal with any problems we may have.  It means that children these days are going to have a harder time finding mentors and teachers who can pass on knowledge and wisdom, so they're going to grow up much less prepared to face life than they would be if they were mentored by people who have knowledge to pass on.

Waits' other points are just as important for us to consider:  do we truly believe that having more of something gives us abundance?  We might have five cars, but is that abundance or excess?  When we consider the fact that each of us can use only one car at a time, it seems pretty obvious that having more than one is simply excess (except for those few people who legitimately need something like a heavy-duty truck for work that they do, and another car that gets better mileage when they're not working).  And does having tons of money mean that someone is automatically happy?  Research and experience tell us no--many people who have a lot of money are inordinately worried about losing that money, or have developed such high expectations because of their ability to pay for things that literally no one is able to meet their expectations, which leads to a great deal of disappointment, anger, and frustration.  Among other things.

Personally, I hope that I can find knowledge, abundance, and happiness in my life.  I'm not concerned about information, possessions, or wealth.  I hope that I can accept the things I have and not waste time wishing and hoping for "more" of something that isn't liable to affect my happiness at all.  I can be happy with what I have, and that is true abundance.  I can try to attain more possessions and wealth within reason, of course, but whether I attain them or not shouldn't change my present happiness.  My present happiness is a cherished possession, and it's very important that I make myself aware of how to maintain it authentically, without getting caught up in what society tells me is important.

Things Get Muddled

Here's another set of thoughts triggered by a song!  One of my favorite Christmas songs is sung by Kevin Bacon, and he sings, "When we are young we are swaddled and snuggled / Whispered to, fussed over, tickled and cuddled / When we grow up, things get muddled."

These lines are wonderful to me, especially the last one.  Things do get muddled, for a variety of reasons.  We lose clarity, and we lose perspective as we grow older and buy into more and more of the things that the society around us is selling us.  Because as we get older, we forget more and more some of the beautiful things of our childhoods, as we "grow up," which we've been convinced by others involves a whole lot of things that aren't necessarily a part of growing older unless we allow them to be.

When we grow older, we're encouraged by so many people to put aside the things of youth.  But why, for goodness' sake?  When we're kids, we can wander around our towns for hours with no destination at all and truly enjoy ourselves the whole time.  When we're older, though, we feel that we always have to have an answer to the question "Where are you going?" even though such a thing isn't at all necessary.  Things get muddled--we no longer do things just for enjoyment or out of curiosity; rather, we think we need to be able to explain everything we do or say to others.

And indeed, those others can definitely be problematic.  They can give you a hard time for "wasting your time," for "not being focused," for "not doing things the way we're supposed to do them."  They can make us feel like we're doing something wrong if we don't have a clear purpose in mind.  They can make us feel like we're wasting our time if we aren't accomplishing some sort of thing that has quantifiable results.  And we can get caught up in the idea of doing what we should be doing, of keeping up appearances, of meeting other people's expectations.

Things get muddled.  We start to think that it's important to make other people happy with us.  We start worrying about appearances, about what other people see, and how other people judge us.  We put aside things that we truly love, like walks along the river or watching our favorite cartoons or painting really mediocre paintings.  We can even stop living from an authentic place, choosing instead to put on a show so that other people will see that show and judge us favorably--based strictly on their criteria for what we should be, not our own.

So how do we unmuddle the world?  How do we see clearly what we need to do to make ourselves happy, to enjoy the experiences that we have on this planet while we're here?  I think that one of the keys to doing so lies in questioning our decisions and our actions--we need to ask ourselves, "Am I doing this just to please someone else, with no real benefits other than having that person be pleased with me for having done what they want me to do?"  The wording of the question should be a warning to us that we may be doing things for completely the wrong reasons--we might have lost our ability to do things because they're the best for us or for the people we love.

After all, how many people agree to work many extra hours even though they have young kids at home who need their presence?  How many people commit themselves all weekend, not allowing themselves the rest and relaxation that they really need?  Things get muddled, and we make decisions that don't make us better versions of ourselves, that don't help us to grow and improve.  Things get muddled and we stop taking care of ourselves and nurturing ourselves.

The whole idea of something being muddled implies that we aren't seeing things with clarity.  We aren't seeing things as they are because other things and thoughts are getting in the way and blocking our ability to see clearly, so we become confused and bewildered.  And when we're in this state, we don't make decisions as effectively as we do when we do see clearly.

I don't want my life to be muddled, but it often is.  My brain sometimes seems to take over and think too much, focusing on too many possible outcomes for me to see a clear path of action--or inaction.  Perhaps it would be better if I were to simply accept the main thought behind Occam's Razor, that the simplest answer to a question is usually the best or the most effective.  Perhaps I need to imagine myself as a kid again, when I was able to make decisions very quickly based on simple criteria like "that would be cool!"  (Although I have to say, I did make some pretty stupid decisions when I was a kid, like jumping off the roof of our house because I thought it would be cool, never thinking that I might get hurt doing so.)

Perhaps our main challenge in life should be just to unmuddle the things that have gotten muddled.  If that's the case, then, we need to recognize the areas in which things are muddled.  If I'm miserable every time I visit this person, but I visit them out of a sense of obligation, then perhaps I need to see the damage that the sense of obligation is causing, and stop visiting this person who makes me miserable.  It would be nice if I can see and accept things as they are, and make decisions based on what is truly best, rather than what I think things should be.

Am I Part of the Cure?

In Coldplay's song "Clocks," the singer asks a very simple question:  "Am I part of the cure, or am I part of the disease?"  It's a question that has been asked in many different ways by many different people, and one that really is worth the time to consider as far as it concerns our own personal lives.  There are many things that are "wrong" in the world, and we'd all like to think that we're not part of the problems that face us all,  The truth is, though, that the vast majority of us are unaware of many of the effects of our words and actions (or lack of action) on others, so there's a good chance that we're actually contributing to some of the problems of our world, and we're unaware of our contribution.

What kinds of things contribute to the "disease" of the world?  There are many obvious things that we can avoid contributing ourselves if we try:  dishonesty, anger, meanness, spite, arrogance, unnecessary criticism, physical violence, emotional manipulation--it really is a very long list.  I suppose we could call it a list of "Don'ts," but for the most part if we focus on what we're not supposed to do, life is just a bit less wonderful and fulfilling than it is if we focus on what we can and should do.  All of these behaviors or traits do focus to what we could call the diseases of life--those things that hurt others, that bring them down, that keep them from becoming the best versions of themselves that they can be.

But how can we be part of a cure for loneliness?  For depression?  For despair?  For low self-esteem and a lack of confidence?  For feelings of ineptitude, of isolation, of not belonging, of not living up to standards that other people push upon us?  If we want to cure a disease, of course, we may be able to cut it off the body, as with some forms of cancer.  But usually it takes more than that--more time and more effort.  We have to follow a program of treatments at regular intervals, such as taking antibiotics twice a day for ten days, or putting other medicines into our bodies to fight whatever disease happens to be there, or immobilizing a limb in order to "cure" a break.

In terms of being with other people, it seems that our "cures" must come in the form of making someone not just feel better for the moment, but actually feel better for good.  I think one of the most important parts of the line of the song are the words "part of"--it's not my job alone to make other people feel better, but I am a part of the whole that can do so.  I can give encouragement today that will be part of the process of helping someone develop self-esteem, but that encouragement must be part of a larger situation.  I can refuse to buy a certain product because a manufacturer is exploiting human beings, but there must be others working to solve that problem, too.  None of us can solve complicated issues on the personal level or the social level by ourselves--we can be part of a cure, but we don't have the responsibility of being the whole cure.  And if we try to take on the job of actually being the whole cure, we're setting ourselves up for tons of stress and busyness, as well as most likely failure.

Part of the cure?  Here are some contributions we might make to be so:

Giving sincere compliments.
Not spending money for products made by irresponsible companies.
Listening closely when other share.
Driving our cars as little as is necessary.
Not wasting food.
Not supporting companies that contribute to deforestation.
Not demanding more than our share.
Sharing even tiny bits of "extra" money that someone else (individual or organization) can put to better use than I can.
Not insulting others, but treating them kindly with love and compassion.
Not adding to conflict when it arises, but either staying out of it or calming things down.
Being honest.
Looking for the silver linings in the clouds we see.
Teaching young people valuable life lessons that will help them, without trying to get them to see the world as we see it.
Respecting every other human being, whether we agree with them or not.
Picking up litter when we see it.

If we think about it, it's not that hard to be a part of the cure.  The hardest part, I think, especially for those of us in the so-called "Western" world, is doing good and positive things without ever seeing any tangible results.  We want to see the results of our efforts, but life isn't always prepared to show us the results of good things that we've done.  Sometimes, the results won't be obvious for months or years later.

But we still need to be a part of the cure.  And we need to let life take our contributions and do with them as it will, because we should give out of a desire to make the world a better place for everyone, not a desire to make things better for ourselves.

What about you?  What do you think are the most important things you can do to be a "part of the cure"?

And the question I always ask myself is simple:  Why am I not doing more of those things?

   

We're in This Together

You and I, for some reason, have ended up spending much of our time together on this planet.  Perhaps we've never met in a physical way, but we do share a connection, if in no other way than through the words on this site or on Living Life Fully.  It boggles the mind to think that of all the people who have ever lived on this planet, we've ended up being right here, right now, and having some sort of connection to each other.  And there are some seven billion other people sharing this planet with us right now, also.  And I think we'd be amazed to find out how much we have in common with so many of those people.

Just looking at the computer that I'm using right now, I see that it's made in China.  Of course that means that a couple of years ago, someone went to work in China and worked on putting together this exact computer that I have now--and it's surely the result of the work of several people in the same factory, each putting in their own pieces on an assembly line.  And not only that, but the different pieces that make up the computer--the screen, the processor, the battery, the hard drive, etc.--came from a completely different place and were put together by completely different people.  And all of those things were made from different raw materials that were mined or produced in different places.  I could probably trace the elements of this computer to hundreds, if not thousands of people who worked on it or who provided materials used in it, all over the world.

And we all breathe the same oxygen, and drink the same water--without either one of them, we would die very quickly.  We eat foods prepared in different ways, but that originate in similar ways.  When I go to a restaurant, I'm connected to my server and the cook and the host or hostess for a short while, but also to the farms that provided the chicken, the potatoes, the vegetables.  Someone made the bread or rolls that I eat, and the wine had to come from somewhere, and is the result of the work of many different people at many different stages.  We are simply part of a greater whole, and so is everyone else.

And so is everyone else!  All these people around us every day are here on this planet with us, at the same time as us.  What does this mean?  For one thing, if we can keep in mind that we're all sharing this planet for a very short period of time, it may be easier for us to see everyone else as "fellow passengers to the grave," as Dickens referred to us all, rather than strangers who may or may not be nice to us.  We're all experiencing what it means to be human beings at the same time, often in the same places.  If we can truly understand this connection, it may make it easier for us to treat those other people kindly, with decency and respect, and not let them hurt our feelings with their mistakes or their indifference.  We're all learning lessons about life as we go, and not everyone learns as quickly as everyone else.  Perhaps that person who just was rude to you is acting out insecurities in the only ways they've been taught to do so, no matter how inappropriate or harmful those ways are.

Life is a challenge.  It offers many difficult moments along with the moments of joy and even ecstasy.  How we meet those challenges is up to us, and how we treat other people as they deal with their own challenges is also up to us.  If we can remember, though, that we're all learning and growing and that almost no one has reached any sort of peak or pinnacle of growth, we can be more kind and compassionate as we witness others make mistakes that often affect us.  We're all here doing the best we can, and those other people in your life may really need a smile and a greeting this morning, even if they regularly ignore us when we walk by.  How we act and how we treat others is up to us, after all, and shouldn't be a result of how others treat us.  Just because others treat us rudely doesn't give us the right to pass that rudeness on to someone else who hasn't treated us rudely at all.

We're in this together.  Do we want to be that small portion of glue that holds things together, or do we want to contribute to the separation of the world?  Everyone can use a kind word or two each day, and who's to give those words to them, if not us?

Nothing's Perfect

I've just finished putting in windows on our porch.  It was a rather pricey thing to do, but we faced a pretty interesting decision:  put in new windows and be able to actually use the porch, or leave in the (very) old windows and have a porch that was very uninviting and that heated up far too much in the summer for us even to consider spending time out there.  We decided to spend the money, and we now have a three-season porch that we actually like to spend time on.

But the decision to spend the money is only a small part of the process of putting in new windows.  Because we're not wealthy, a job like this falls to me to do, so I end up pulling out the old windows, frames, sills, and all, and putting in the new windows and then framing them.  That's where the time-consuming part comes in, and that's where I have to make decisions as to just how perfect things need to be, as people will be looking at this part of the work more than anything else.

And there's a part of me that wants everything to be perfect, that wants every cut to be precise, every fitting almost unnoticeable.  Part of that, I'm sure, is the fear of being judged by others when they see something I've done that isn't perfect, and that's not a motivating factor that I want to be dominant in my life.  If I want to do something perfectly, then I want to do so simply for the satisfaction of having done so, not to please others.  Besides, if I want perfect, then I need to buy many more expensive tools than those I have, things like a table saw with which I can make precise cuts and fit every board absolutely perfectly.  I really don't want to spend that much money, though.

So I'm pretty satisfied with a very good job rather than a perfect job.  The windows look nice, and so does the framing.  If a professional were to come in and look for so-called flaws, they probably would find quite a few.  But the fact is that the windows are in securely, the framing around them looks very nice, and their installation has improved the porch immensely, turning it into a place where we can spend a lot of time this summer, whereas before, with the old windows, it wasn't a very pleasant place at all.  We now have an attractive three-season porch where we're going to pass many pleasant hours, reading and listening to the many birds in our neighborhood as they sing each morning.

I do know people, though, who would look only at the flaws, who would look only at what they think should have been done better, places where boards should have matched up better or where there shouldn't be quite so much of a gap.  To me, those things are completely unimportant, and I'm happy to have a useful porch now.  I think it would be difficult to go through life always focusing on flaws, always trying to find things wrong with other people's work.  I grew up always looking for flaws in my own work, so now that I'm able to relax and enjoy a nice porch even with its imperfections, life is quite a bit more pleasant.

I hope that I'm always able to be satisfied with a very good job.  Nothing needs to be absolutely perfect.  I don't use this attitude to justify shoddy work that results in inferior results, but I do want to be happy with very good work that makes the most of limited resources and produces a very good job.  The best that we can do is just that--the best that we can do, and we should be happy with that, and not have unrealistic expectations of perfection that are almost always unjustified.

Everything from Seeds

It really is interesting to consider just how much of who we are depends upon seeds.  On the purely physical level, almost everything that we eat to gain energy and grow can be traced back on the food chain to seeds that grow the grass eaten by cows and other animals, or that are actually eaten by birds and rodents and even humans.  We put seeds in our bread and in our cereal and in many other things that we eat, but the true beauty of seeds is the way that they can become something completely different when they're planted and they sprout and grow.

As a teacher, I see myself as a seed planter, not a knowledge imparter.  I don't consider my job to be to transfer knowledge from my brain to the brains of my students--rather, I consider my main task to be to provide the conditions in which learning is possible, in which students can find the desire and ability to learn new things, but--more importantly--also find the desire to learn.  After all, we can't grow and develop into the people that we're meant to be if we don't want to learn and grow.  By the end of a semester or a school year, it's much less important that a student has memorized certain facts or processes or information than it is that a student has reflected upon their own lives and the ways that they fit into the world.

So I try to plant seeds.  I try to instill a love for learning by teaching students how to learn, rather than simply focusing on the information they're supposed to "know" by the end of a term.  I make it possible even for someone who struggles with learning to do well in my classes by making an effort, whether they're able to do everything or know everything that the state says they should know by a certain age or not.  I want these seeds that I plant to give them a sense of hope and a feeling that they're able to do anything that faces them, even if it's something very difficult, by approaching it in the right way.

With these seeds, they hopefully are gaining something that will help them later in life--next week or ten years from now.  I've given up needing to see immediate results in the classroom, and I'm much more interested in how they'll be able to do next year, or five years from now when they're in college.  Once I plant the seeds, of course, it's up to the students themselves to nurturer them and help them to grow into something healthy and beautiful, and I have to trust in the process, knowing that I more than likely will never see the actual results of the seeds that I've planted.

On a more basic level, if a tree seed is planted in the wrong kind of soil, then it simply won't grow, or any growth will be stunted.  The tree will not be able to reach its potential.  Unfortunately, we try to treat each young person as if they were all the same--but every young person isn't a maple tree, that can thrive in New England, but that wouldn't even survive on a mountainside in Colorado.  Are these seeds wasted?  Unfortunately, many people aren't able to overcome the treatment they received as young people when they become adults, and they live their lives never really becoming anything near what they had the potential to become.  It's truly a shame, but it happens all the time, unfortunately.

I think about seeds a lot when I'm teaching, and I think of myself not just as a sower of seeds, but as someone who's helping other people to learn how to nurture those seeds and to help them grow to maturity.  You have had many seeds planted in you over the years, from great ideas to strategies for success to possible career tracks to the fulfillment of your own potential.  Do you help those seeds to grow?  If not, how could you do so?  How could you make the seeds of your life grow into beautiful plants, whether they be large and beautiful or small and delicate and beautiful?  And how can you plant seeds in the minds and hearts of others, seeds that can help them to make the most of their own lives?  One of our greatest goals in life should be to help others to navigate life in ways that are healthy and that make them happy, and we can certainly help others to do so by planting healthy seeds in healthy soil.



(By the way, one of the ways that I love to plant seeds is to share books that can help people to see life in wonderful ways.  Some of the books I like to give as gifts are Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Little Prince, Kitchen Table Wisdom, Prescriptions for Living, or books of poems by people like Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, or many others.  I'm planting seeds by giving the books as a gift, and the authors are planting their own seeds in their own ways.)