Maintaining a Haven--More thoughts of what a site should be in these trying days

One of the things that I've always wanted Living Life Fully to be is an online haven.  I've wanted it to be a place where people can come to find positive thoughts when they've needed them, to find solace when life has become tempestuous, to find good when they seem to be surrounded or inundated with bad.  After all, there are already plenty of websites where people can find political content that addresses the difficulties and wrongs of our current world--so what's wrong with providing a place that's dedicated to peace and understanding and kindness and compassion?

The answer is simple, of course:  there's nothing wrong with it.  It's nice to provide a site full of content that's devoted to helping us to accept life and live it as it is, and to find ways to change things that would be better off changed (once we've accepted those things, of course).

Personally, I'm very much against the current political trends in the United States.  Never in my life did I expect to see in my own country a governmental agency such as ICE that works outside of the law to harass and beat and kidnap people.  Never did I expect to see a president who profiteers from his position and who spews constant insults, lies, and misinformation.  Never did I expect to see representatives and senators who are so afraid of voting against party lines that they refuse to do so, helping laws to be passed that deprive huge numbers of people of many of their much-needed resources and services.

And never did I expect to see such a large part of the American populace not just being okay with all this, but actually celebrating the fact that other people in this country are losing rights and resources and services.  They're celebrating other people's pain and frustration and loss.

But the question I face is whether or not I should use the website to speak out against such things.  And I feel that the answer is in the purpose of the site--to provide people with a place online where they can find uplifting and motivational material all day, every day, any time they wish.  Once I start adding political content, then the site changes, and not everyone will feel welcome there.  I have other ways that I can speak out against political actions and societal problems--I don't have to do so on livinglifefully.com.  So I won't.

That said, I don't want to simply say "The site is what it is and will never change."  That strategy wouldn't help a bit to make the site more helpful and relevant, and it could actually cause the site to be irrelevant sooner rather than later to large numbers of people.  And as I said in my last post, the world is changing, and more and more people are finding themselves displaced, disenfranchised, and frightened and lonely and helpless.  How can the site change to help them, when and if they find it?  What can be added to the content?  How can the presentation change?  What would be most useful to more people?  These are the questions that I must ask myself as the site moves forward in time, and as the world changes around us.  What can I offer the world that would help the world, even in the smallest of ways, without becoming political and probably alienating a large number of people?

Finland has introduced something new into their school curricula:  How to recognize fake news and false information online.  They've recognized that not being able to recognize these things seriously inhibits their citizens' ability to make the most of their lives and to contribute to society in positive ways.  It's a brave new direction to take, and one that most people probably would acknowledge is a necessary step in the world of today.  Hopefully, they'll be successful in Finland--but it's obvious that other countries haven't done anything to deal with some of the new elements that the Internet has brought into our lives.  So much fake news is dedicated to trying to get people to hate or mistrust other people, and we're being more and more divided by this "tool" that is supposed to improve our lives by making more information available to us.  The people who make decisions about school curricula in Finland have recognized this fact, and they're doing something to fight it, through the education of their young people.

I'd like the site to be like Finland--help people to recognize and accept problems, and then take some sort of action to counter them.  In fact, this has been the goal of the site for the last 25+ years.  But I'm feeling and thinking that more and more, the recognition of problems is getting more difficult because people are learning to be more self-righteous, and less willing to look at themselves and their words and actions in a critical way, which is the only way to look at ourselves if we truly want to improve in any way.  And by "critical" I mean critiquing, and not criticizing--there's a huge difference between the two concepts.

What does it mean to maintain a haven while still addressing many of the needs and challenges that people are now facing?  How do I make the site more responsive to some of the awful things that people are experiencing and feeling without turning the site into a politically active site, one that becomes mired in controversy and that takes sides, necessarily leaving some people feeling isolated and alienated?  Do I want to say "This site is only for people who believe what I believe," or do I want to say, "This site is for everyone who wants to come here and read, no matter what your political views or opinions"?

I believe that this last question is rhetorical, of course.  It has to be the latter.  And I say this even though I don't respect many of the opinions that we're seeing expressed these days--opinions that other people's rights don't mean anything, that certain people aren't deserving of the protection of the law, that certain people aren't deserving of any sort of kindness or compassion simply because of their race or their national origin.

But I know that the site must transcend all of these issues, and simply be available for anyone who wants or needs the words of wisdom that come from such a broad spectrum of sources.  And so it shall.

I don't think that any changes that happen have to be changes of content.  Rather, I believe that they must be changes in presentation.  What kinds of quotations and passages should be grouped together on a page?  How might a person find hope in the words of others who have lived through similar trials?  These are the questions that I'll be asking myself as I try to figure out what to do and how to do it.  And as always, any comments or suggestions are more than welcome.  My hope is that the site can be helpful to someone, somewhere, somehow, and I have to let go of any need to know about that helpfulness and just trust that it may happen.

So that's what I'll do.  Thanks for listening, and thanks for being here!

A New Approach? What Does That Mean?

"Living life fully" is a concept that I believe has changed considerably in recent years.  While I still believe that it's very important for us all to do our best to make our lives as positive as possible, and for us to give to the world as much as we can while still taking very good care of ourselves, I'm not sure any more that most people are in situations in which this sort of thing is easy, if it's even possible for them.  The world seems to be in dire straits, and people are treating each other not just carelessly, but even cruelly.  There are many people in the world who are having a hard time just surviving, who would have a terribly difficult time thinking of thriving.

I can't imagine what life must be like for a young person of twelve years in Gaza right now.  For any person in Gaza.  Families have to be having a hard time just finding food to eat, and any words that would tell that young person to make the most of their lives and look on the bright side of things must ring very hollow.  The same goes for the 30-year-old in the Ukraine, the thousands of people being detained illegally in the United States, the young girl somewhere who has just been "given" to an older man for marriage, the young person who just graduated college to find that there are no jobs available in their field.

I do think that in most cases, we actually do determine our own happiness or unhappiness.  We've all read material that shows us that a man in a concentration camp can make a difference for fellow inmates and come out of the experience a stronger person; that a young child can lose a leg in a bombing and transform that loss into something that helps them to appreciate life and help others; that a family member can die and make us even more appreciative of what that person left behind.

But mostly, when we talk about living life fully, we're coming from a position of privilege and good fortune and even good luck--luck that we were born in a certain country at a certain time that allows us the luxury of actually pursuing higher needs because our more basic needs--food, clothing, shelter, absence of war, safe water, work, money--are taken care of.  Not everyone enjoys the fulfillment of these basic needs, and how does someone who doesn't enjoy them react to being told "Being happy is all in your own mind, of your own doing"?

So what does all this mean?  Does it mean that all the work that I've put into the website over the past 27 years has been for naught?  I don't believe so--I think there's much there that's helpful and useful for anyone and everyone.  But I also think that it's time for some sort of new direction, a direction that can be more universally useful, a voice that can speak to anyone, anywhere, with caring and compassion and relevance.  I'm not sure exactly what that means, of course, but I believe that it's time to find out.  Or at least to start experimenting until I do find out.

So if you see any changes on the site in the near future, please know that those changes are being made with the current world in mind, with the idea that life in this world of ours has become so difficult and so complex that we need to explore ideas such as that of living life fully in new ways, ways that can be helpful to more people who have become marginalized and disenfranchised.  I think that what I've been doing for the last 27 years--what I've been giving to the world in the form of a website--has been fine in and of itself, but I also think that we've seen some incredible shifts in life and living over the last couple of decades, and new voices and new approaches are needed.

Any suggestions would be welcome.  Any thoughts, as well.  We have a new world to live in, and the world of the future looks to be even more complex and more difficult for more people, so it's time for a different approach.  Let's see what we can do. . . .

A Very Long Silence, Take 2

This is very difficult to write.  I'm hoping that with time, it will become easier, but who knows?  The fact is that I've been completely silent here for over half a year.  And there are several reasons for that.  I've tried writing something to start over, but I haven't liked anything that I've written so far.  It's been too easy to get too philosophical, too negative, too whatever.  I don't want to write negative stuff here--it wouldn't serve the purpose for which this blog was started in the first place.

But the fact is that my silence has been the result of incredible negativity in our country.  My silence has been the result of the mourning and the grief that I'm still going through--the country that I used to know is gone, and it's being replaced more and more, day after day, with an authoritarian regime, the likes of which none of us ever thought we'd see in this land.  But here it is.

The four years that I served in the Army seem like a waste of time now.  I served to help--in a very small way, of course--to preserve the freedoms and the democracy that has made this country great in the past.  But I find now that the country has been taken over by the very wealthy, and they're doing everything they can to redirect as much money as possible away from the people who don't have much of it and into their own pockets.  They're kidnapping people off the streets without any due process.  They're passing laws and making rules without any checks or balances, turning this country into little more than a corrupt banana republic, the likes of which we used to read about with gratitude that our country wasn't like that.

Imagine that.

The grief is such that it's caused my wife and me to look to leaving the country to move to a place that isn't a totalitarian nightmare.  We want to give our children a place to go to when and if things here fall apart so far that life becomes dangerous for anyone who opposes the government.  We want to live in a country where people aren't kidnapped on the street by thugs in masks and no uniforms, and then sent to what are basically concentration camps thousands of miles from where they were abducted, even to countries they've never lived in, with absolutely no due process.

The harm that's being done right now is difficult to witness, especially when I know that I personally can do nothing about it.  As a teacher, I'm horrified at the models of "power" that our young people are witnessing and learning from.

But more than anything else, I'm at a loss as to how I'm going to continue sharing thoughts and ideas about living life fully when so many people are having their freedom taken from them, not to mention their ability to simply live their lives in peace, much less to live them fully.

I'll get there.  Many people are going through much worse these days--think of Gaza for just a moment--and what I'm going through doesn't come near what they're dealing with.  But that doesn't make my loss or my grief any less legitimate.  It's going to take me time to internalize it and deal with it effectively, and to get to a point at which I feel I'm living my own life fully once more.  And I will get to a point at which I can write again, hopefully even slightly effectively.

I never expected anything like this, but life does, indeed, throw curveballs sometimes.  I know that my main task now is to go with the flow rather than fighting it, and finding my own ways to resist the horrible things that are going on in so many places, on so many different levels.  I'm not going to play the victim, but I do need time to grieve the loss that is very real in many of our lives right now.

Unusual Behavior at Christmas

Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the  year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish.  Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a person has to be him- or herself.   -Francis C. Farley


Christmas is nigh, and we all have the chances once again to do something special for someone else this Christmas season.  Personally, I love the Christmas season because it's a time when people let down their guard a bit and treat each other just a bit more kindly, with a bit more respect and caring and love.  And to be honest, that's that way I want to be all the time, and this time of year allows me to share that feeling with others.  The rest of the year, it often seems like I'm the only one who wants to do special things for other people, and at times that can get very frustrating and even discouraging, because most people aren't ready to accept that kind of behavior if there's no special occasion for it.

Think about it:  If you were to give some of the gifts that you give for Christmas on just some random Tuesday in June, how would people respond?  In my experience, their first response would be to be baffled.  Why is this person giving me a gift?  That's often (usually?) followed by suspicion:  What does s/he want from me?  Is this a come-on?  It's a shame, but in our societies we're often taught to be suspicious of anyone doing anything out of the norm, and it's also a shame that doing kind things for people for no particular reason is quite out of the norm.

Of course, I'm not talking about buying a car for a co-worker that I hardly know.  Rather, I'm thinking about the little acts of kindness that we can show to others that can help them to have a better and brighter day.  During Christmas season, we see tons of those--candy and cookies in the mailbox or on the desk, kind words in the hallway, asking about our holiday plans or what we want for Christmas.  What most people don't seem to realize is that these things are natural for us--it's natural for us to be kind to others, to share gifts with them just because, to actually speak to them as if we're interested in what they say.

But as Francis says, we see this as "unusual" behavior.  We see this type of treatment of others as an aberration.  But what if we were to take back our right to act in ways that come naturally to us, no matter the outcome?  What if I were always to be kind to others even when I get rudeness or indifference in return?  What if I want to be giving even when others aren't ready or willing to be getting?  What if I want to share even when others don't seem to be interested in sharing?

It isn't always easy.  I work at a school at which fully half of the faculty doesn't even look at other teachers when they pass them in the hallway--honestly!  That makes it hard to continue to say good morning to people who simply ignore the greeting.  After a while, my tendency is to say to myself, "Okay, they're not interested in hearing a greeting from me, so I'll stop."  When I do that, though, I'm very clearly allowing their actions to affect my decisions about how I'll treat other people.  And I don't want that to happen, so, I have to keep on saying good morning even when someone doesn't respond--if I want to be true to myself and the person I want to be.

At Christmas time, I think it's easier because so many other people are also receptive to what we have to give.  They not only accept it, but they express their appreciation for it, too, and that makes us feel better about having offered our gifts in the first place.  So we have a chance to be ourselves because we're not afraid that being ourselves will cause us negative results or feedback.

So let's take advantage of this Christmas season and give all that we can in all the ways that we can (in a realistic way!).  And let's use this season as training, getting experience in giving and in getting, so that we can continue to be ourselves every day of the year.  It really is up to us if we want to show our true selves to the world.

Taking Action in Small Ways

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade wind in your sails.  Explore.  Dream.  Discover.   -unattributed


Twenty years from now?  How about three days from now?  How often do we regret not doing things that might have helped us out in life, that might have taught us important lessons, that might have just been really, really fun?  And when we think of reasons for which we haven't taken action--expediency, fear, apathy, being busy, not being able to afford something--our lack of action can prove to be even more frustrating, more regrettable.  We all have many chances for action every day that we're alive, but my guess is that we take advantage of few of them.

In my life, I've learned that if I want anything to change for the better at all, it really is up to me to take some sort of action to make it do so.  There's a whole lot to be said for allowing life to flow as it will and for allowing oneself to flow with it, but that perspective doesn't absolve us from responsibility for shaping certain aspects of our lives.  If we move to a new town, we're the ones who actually have to look for a new job, who have to make contact with others to find things to do and interesting activities to be involved with.  If we want to meet new people, we may sit around and wait for others to take an interest in us and come to introduce themselves to us, but the chances are that that's not going to happen much.  We need to take the initiative and actually introduce ourselves to people.

It's easy not to take action.  As a runner, I try to go out and run at least four times a week in the winter, and trust me--it's not always easy.  When the temperature is 20 degrees and there's a breeze and it looks like it could snow any minute, I often have no desire at all to go outside and get cold.  But there is one truth about such a situation that I know from experience--I have never had an awful time when I've gone out to run in "bad" weather.  On the contrary, some of the times when I've bitten the bullet and put on my cold-weather running clothes and gone out for a 40-minute runs have become some of my best runs ever, ones that I remember more than the vast majority of the runs that I've done in fine weather.

I'm not a very good people person--I try, but there are a lot of things about the ways I grew up that caused me to be intimidated by almost everyone I meet.  I've accepted this fact and I've learned to deal with it and to live with it, but that doesn't mean that my fears of people and contact with people have simply gone away.  I think they'll be with me my whole life, to be honest.  What this means is that, for example, if I want to meet people I have to take an action that can be very difficult for me to take--actually introduce myself to someone, or start a conversation with someone.  I know plenty of people who have no problem at all doing so, but I also know plenty of people like me who have a hard time with such a thing.  Though my mind comes up with many reasons for not taking action, it's important that I'm sure not to take my mind too seriously all the time, and to disregard its fears and suspicions.  When I do that, I can take an action that may be beneficial to me.

I've written five novels and several non-fiction books in my life.  None of them have sold many copies or made me any income, but I do have a feeling of satisfaction for having done something that I wanted to do.  And of course, the most important part of any of those books was the sitting down to start working, the taking action to begin a book, not having any idea when or how I would finish it.

When I graduated college with a degree in Spanish and no real prospects, I bought a one-way ticket to London and ended up pretty much penniless in Spain, but I was able to teach English classes and make a very sparse living.  I wasn't wealthy and I struggled quite a bit, but the three years that I ended up living in Europe were easily the most important three years of my life.

Sometimes we have to take a risk and take action.  We need to follow our hearts and do something, though I would strongly suggest making plans that will help you avoid disaster before stepping out into unknown territory.  The plans don't need to be extremely detailed, but we should have some idea of what steps we're going to take when things don't turn out as we hoped or thought they would.

Is there something in your life that you wish were different?  Think about it--what action(s) would you need to take to make that something a reality?  What kinds of contingency plans would you need to have in place in order to make those actions doable for you?  A life without action becomes stagnant, of course, just as water that doesn't flow does.  If we want to add in positive ways to our own lives, we do need to take some actions, whether they have to do with jobs, relationships, hobbies, or even recreation or vacations.  Knowing this can help us to make ourselves ready to take actions that will matter in our lives.

Work or Play?

The masters in the art of living make little distinction between their work and their play, their labor and their leisure, their minds and their bodies, their education and their recreation, their love and their religion.  They hardly know which is which.  They simply pursue their vision of excellence in whatever they do, leaving others to decide whether they are working or playing.  To them they are always doing both.    -Zen Buddhist text


We like to classify things, don't we?  We like to give things names, put them into categories, group them, and define them.  We've been taught since we were very young that this is necessary for us somehow, that this is an effective way of approaching life.  I believe that we see this tendency of ours as an effective way of controlling things, and of controlling our minds.  After all, if I have something that I don't know what to do with, that can be frustrating and stressful.  Is this an A or a B?  Does it belong in this group or in that group?  Is it for Tuesdays or Wednesdays?  It gives us a sense of comfort to be in control, to know how something is defined, exactly what it's used for, and exactly how to explain it to others.

But what does that do to potential?  Once I define something as "play" or "recreation," then it doesn't belong in the workplace, does it?  Once I define something as "work," then I'm going to avoid doing it at home, even if I enjoy it.  We're taught not just to categorize, but to build walls between categories so that the things that we consider to be of one category won't interfere with what we consider to be of another category.

Of course, this is often a useful tendency.  I'm often somewhat shocked to see some of the things that some teachers do in classrooms that are very clearly simply entertainment, and that have practically no pedagogical value at all.  I've taught students in language classes, for example, who spent tons of time in previous classes watching movies and playing video games--and who haven't learned what they need to know for this new language class.  And they're often in classes with students who had teachers who taught an awful lot, and who have a very strong base in the language.  Guess who does well in the class?  I find myself feeling awful for the students who watched a lot of films, and wishing that their teachers understood better the need to use the class time actually teaching and modeling and answering questions rather than simply pressing "play."

Looking at that example of an extreme, we can see one reason for which we do separate things.  Do I really want to take my car to a mechanic who spends all their time watching videos on social media, even while working?  Obviously not--there needs to be separation.  But that's not what this passage is talking about.  Would I prefer to take my car to a mechanic who sees his job as a necessary drudgery that he performs so that he can pay bills, or to someone who loves his job so much that he can't wait to come into work so that he can problem-solve, fix things, and improve things?  If his job is intellectually stimulating to him, and if he enjoys it, then he's found a great gift--work that he enjoys doing.

But what if all of us can find such a way of looking at the work that we're already doing?  What if there's a lot of enjoyment to be found in the jobs we have, but we just haven't looked for it yet because we've categorized it as "work," and we just know that there isn't anything enjoyable to be found there?

This does actually happen to me sometimes, depending on the school I'm teaching at.  Sometimes the stress just builds and builds until I even dread going to work each day.  I do my best to work my way out of such feelings, but they do arise at times, and they're difficult to deal with.  I have to remind myself that I have the privilege of working with young people who are in the process of learning what they can about life, living, and education.  And in my own very small way, I have an opportunity to contribute to their education, to help them to learn how to learn, to help them to understand some of the choices and dilemmas that they're going to be facing as they move into adulthood.

But the most important thing I can do is keep in mind that working with these young people can actually be fun--and that my journey to school each morning isn't a trip that ends in misery for eight hours or so, but a way to get to a place where I enjoy myself while helping young people to learn things that may help them later in life.  And it's up to me if I see it as fun or if I see it as a tedious and annoying chore--and I much prefer to see it as fun.

So my goal is to pursue excellence with the kids I work with, and to try to help them to learn, and to enjoy their company.  And when I think about it in the right way, I understand that my ability to go work with these young people every day is a privilege that I'm very fortunate to have, and that whether I enjoy the experience or not is completely up to me.  Is my job a joyful part of my life, or a dreary and drab and tedious annoyance?  It's so very true that the answer to that question is completely up to me, and the way that I answer it can strongly affect my happiness and my fulfillment in life.

Defining "Achievement"

I hope that my achievements in life shall be these--that I will have fought for what was right and fair, that I will have risked for that which mattered, and that I will have given help to those who were in need; that I will have left the earth a better place for what I've done and who I've been.    -Carl Thomas Hoppe


It's an interesting word, isn't it?  If I achieve something, I should be proud of my achievement, right?  After all, I now have something to share with others, even to brag about, depending upon how proud I am of my achievement.  I think problems come into play, though, when two different things come into play.  First, if I'm achieving things solely to please or impress others, have I really achieved anything at all, other than gaining positive judgment from other people?  And second, what if my motivation for achievement is purely selfish, if I want to accomplish something strictly for my own benefit?  I would say then that the achievement is tainted somehow, and could possibly even be classified as something other than an actual achievement, and more as just something that I've done, like washing my bowl and spoon after having cereal in the morning.

When we decide for ourselves what we consider to be true achievements--and Carl's list gives us an excellent place to start--and then pursue those goals, then I think that we're on the right track.  Carl was a salesman, of course, so his list is going to be a bit different from mine, but our lists can overlap in some very basic ways, such as treating others with dignity and respect, and helping others as much as we can.  As a teacher, I'm going to have a list that concerns how I treat my students, whether or not I actually teach them something (many "teachers" don't teach anything at all, believe it or not), and how I prepare them for later in their lives, among other things.  These are the things that are important to me as a teacher, and if I can truly say that my students have learned something important, then I can also say that I've achieved something positive.

Parents have the opportunity to contribute caring, kind, and compassionate people to the world, depending on how they raise their children.  Sending a kind and compassionate human being into the world is a wonderful achievement.  A salesperson can help people to get the best possible product, or vehicle, or home for the best possible price.  A chef or a cook can provide people with food that will keep them alive and that will also be enjoyable, giving people a chance to connect around a dinner table or lunch table--one of the best places of all for connecting with others.  A young person who gets C's and D's on school assignments can get a B and consider that a fine achievement--not everyone is going to get A's in every subject, after all.

I love the first line of Hoppe's quotation--it's nice to think of our achievements as hopes before we achieve them.  If I re-word the line to read,

"I hope that my achievements in the future shall be these," we can provide ourselves with a working plan for both our short- and long-term futures.  And what if we limit ourselves to three things that are definitely things that we can accomplish?  Can we set ourselves up for success?  So here goes--I'll get us started:

I hope that my achievements in the future shall be these:
a.  to encourage young people to make the most of their lives,
b.  to be kind to as many of the people I meet as I possibly can, and 
c.  to let love be the guiding force in my life.

So what about you?  How will you fill in the blanks?

I hope that my achievements in the future shall be these:
a.
b.
c.