Being Aware (in Today's World)

You don’t need to push the water to enter the bean.  You let
the bean be in the water, and slowly, slowly the water is absorbed.
Overnight the bean gets soaked, swollen, and tender.  You are like
these mung beans and awareness is the water.  The practice is to
bring your mind gently back to the present moment with your body
and unify body and mind.  The tension will slowly dissipate, your
awareness will grow, and you can see things in a clearer way.
-Thich Nhat Hanh

In some ways, I don't want to be aware any more.  There are so many things that I see that simply make me crazy and angry and frustrated and hopeless--but I know that it's my reaction to what I see that's causing me stress, not what I see itself.  I have to keep reminding myself that in these times of turmoil, my awareness is more important than ever.  I don't need to dwell on the news, and I certainly don't need to doomscroll through social media to constantly make myself feel worse, but I do need to know what's going on.  Some people may need me to explain it to them in a logical, objective way.  There may be causes that arise that I can participate in.  I may know about historical events that were similar to what's going on now, and I can explain the parallels and differences to others.  My ignorance about what goes on in the world serves no one.  My awareness at least has the potential to serve others and to serve me, myself.

I do choose carefully which sources to get my news from, and how much news to actually read at any given time.  My awareness is important to me, but I want to be aware of things as accurately as I can.  I can reach overload, though, especially these days, so it's important that I recognize when I need to turn off the flow of incoming news and opinions.  Otherwise, it would be very easy for me to get completely overwhelmed and to lose my sense of balance in the world.

We don't need to know everything--if we tried to, we'd probably go crazy.  But we do need to know that bad things are happening all over the place in many different areas--in U.S. politics, in global climate change, in the Middle East, in Africa, in China--the world seems to be in turmoil almost everywhere, and unless we want to allow that turmoil to sneak up on us and surprise us with something horrible someday, we need to be aware of happenings and trends and changes that are going on if we want to have even the slightest chance of making the most of the lives we have in a world that is most certainly not at peace these days.

Awareness.  It's not up to us to change the world ourselves, and we can't save everyone everywhere, but we can be aware, for our own sakes and for the sakes of other people who are part of our lives.  So let's keep our eyes and ears and hearts open so that we can at least be aware of what's going on, and what may happen because of what's going on.  There may be nothing more important for us these days than to know what's going on in the world--the world in general, and the microworld(s) that we live in ourselves.

Gentleness--Living in Today's World

Is the concept of Living Life Fully even helpful these days?  Are all of the words and ideas and concepts that encourage people to live their lives fully out of date and irrelevant?  This series is inspired simply by the state of the world today--we're living in a world of division and anger and even hatred, and at times it seems impossible to feel any sort of peace with all that's going on.  It seems for many people that their stability and safety in life are being stripped away, leaving them to fend for themselves in a world that doesn't seem to want to help.  Personally, I'm not at all fond of the directions our world is taking, and I'm very frustrated that there seems to be little to nothing that I'm able to do to make anything better for anyone--I just have to go along for the ride as everyone else does.  As I go, though, I want to look for the little things I might be able to do to make the world a more pleasant place for others--spreading kind words, being considerate and polite, encouraging and complimenting--all little things, but for someone with no real wealth and no way to accumulate wealth, they're ways that I can contribute to the positive energy of the world--and when we add my contribution to your contribution to his contribution to the contributions of thousands of other people, suddenly it doesn't seem so trivial.

Can you commit to spreading as much positive energy, as many positive thoughts and ideas, as you can each day?  I really do believe that it's going to take each one of us who truly wants a kind and gentle world in which EVERYONE feels loved and accepted to focus on our own efforts, and make sure that they're consistent and consistently kind and positive.

The world seems to be in an awful state--but is it hopeless?  I hope not--the history of humankind has always been a rollercoaster ride with its ups and downs and brutal moves from left to right and back again, and we find ourselves in one of the valleys now, when human nature is being shown in so many ugly and unpleasant ways.  But I still have my life, and I have my own world to live in, my microworld among the macroenvironments that make up this planet and its people and all of the natural world that's here with us.  One thing that I can do on a tiny level is try to explore the concept of Living Life Fully and how it can be achieved in a world that seems so darned unfriendly.  After all, my doctorate is in Teaching and Learning, and I've done a lot of learning in my life.  Perhaps it's time for me to pass on what I've learned in small doses, with the intent of helping others to see more clearly some of the concepts that I've learned about, and to help others put into practice strategies that can help them to get more out of the lives that they're living.

So here goes.  Today I start with Gentleness, a concept that many people today see as weakness, but which can be one of the most effective strategies we can adopt in the effort to live our lives more fully.  We must remember that our gentleness doesn't need to be world-changing in order to be important or effective.  But it will be life-changing, both for us and for those people who are on the receiving end of our gentle actions.


Gentleness

Only the weak are cruel.  Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.    -Leo Buscaglia


We're seeing a lot of cruelty in the world today, and it can be very tempting to want to completely do away with it, to want to change the hearts of cruel people so that they're no longer cruel.  We can't do that, though.  No matter how many people post negative attacks on cruel people on social media, the fact is that tomorrow, the cruel people will still be here, and they'll still be cruel.  We change very little by attacking, but we can change a lot by being gentle and kind.  Today I'm going to do my best to be gentle:  to give a gentle response to an aggressive person; to gently remind someone that being kind to others is important; to gently correct someone with the truth when they're spewing lies.  Gentleness doesn't always have immediate effects, but the long-term effects can be extremely awesome; we just have to trust that our gentleness today will have a positive effect on the world tomorrow.  We can let the weak be cruel, but it would be a terrible thing to emulate them simply to placate them.  We can disagree with them aggressively, which will probably cause more conflict, or we can gently correct them, and put our hopes in long-term effects rather than short-term returns.  When we're gentle, we're giving hope to others that perhaps things can get better, and I hope that my gentleness will sooth an aching soul rather than rile it up even further.

Finding Fits--Being Young Today

For those of us who are older, who have been around a relatively long time on this planet, the lives of our young people tend to be a bit beyond our comprehension.  It's very difficult--if not impossible--for us to understand just what they're going through as they try to make their ways in life, as they try to establish themselves and their personalities and their identities.  They face a world that's far more complicated and far more difficult than most of what we had to face years ago, for the world that they're living in is very, very different from the world in which we established ourselves.

One of the most glaringly obvious differences that we see all the time is the fact that young people today carry around computers, having access 24/7 to a huge amount of information, entertainment, and content designed to addict users.  While there are those who argue that such access to a world of information is a wonderful advantage for our young people, it's becoming clear that this access is sabotaging many of their academic, professional, and social pursuits.  To make things short, though, one of the most dire effects of the computer on our young people is its tendency to isolate them, to keep them addicted to looking at a screen rather than interacting with their fellow human beings, and that's something that we need to recognize and that we need to do something about--for their sake, not for ours.

Most of us grew up being forced to interact regularly with our fellow human beings, whether that be in school or at the store or in the park or playground.  These days, though, we see empty parks and playgrounds constantly, as kids are at home in front of screens instead of outside dealing with the world they live in.  Of course, all of our interactions with others weren't positive when we were younger, but they all helped us to learn about the world and the people in it.  We learned social skills that have helped us professionally and personally, and we've been able to put those skills to use in our jobs and in our daily lives.  (Unfortunately, those of us who are older don't have nearly as many opportunities to interact with young people these days, which makes it difficult to pass on knowledge and wisdom that we've gained over the years--but that's a different essay, isn't it?)

As a high school teacher up until a few months ago, I've seen huge changes in the young people with whom I've worked.  Speaking in general, of course, the young people of today's world are dealing with many issues that we didn't really have to deal with.  They tend to feel a sense of isolation that was much less common three or five decades ago--parents are less accessible, friends are less accessible, and teachers and other role model/mentor figures are less accessible.  Mostly this has to do with two things: overcommitment and screen addictions, including both phone screens and television/streaming screens.  And I'm not saying the kids are those who are addicted.  When I was young, neither of my parents were addicted to screens, which meant that they weren't constantly distracted by things like reels and social media (in my family that didn't help much due to the highly dysfunctional nature of my family, but that's another story).  I knew plenty of kids who spent plenty of time with their parents, which can be one of the most valuable learning experiences we have.  Nowadays, even when a parent is with a kid, that parent is very often talking on the phone with someone else or scrolling through social media or looking at emails.  The kids get to "spend time" with a parent, but experience being neglected because the parent "prefers" the company of the phone to the company of their child.  It's a brutal message to send to a kid.

Likewise, many kids find that the "friends" they have at school aren't going to be friends outside of school because those kids are too busy.  They're going to soccer practice and then they're going to tutoring and then they're working and then they're playing video games or watching movies--they're doing something with a screen involved.  Spending time with friends is something they have to make an appointment to do, and they can do it only when their "friends" happen to be free for a few moments.

This isn't the story of every young person, of course.  And in countries other than the United States, the screen isn't nearly as dominant a presence in the lives of young people--kids still get together to be kids, to spend time together, to enjoy each other's company, to simply be.

But what does all this mean?  Mostly, I try to keep this fact in mind when I meet young people and I think of how I want to treat them.  I really do want to treat them with dignity and respect, as they're not being treated that way regularly.  They're facing tons of expectations even though they're being rather poorly prepared to meet those expectations.  We can't neglect kids and then expect them to be strong, contributing members of our society.  But if we treat them well, teach them well, and love and encourage them, they have a much better chance to succeed, both on their own terms and the terms that are defined by society.

I want kids to succeed.  I want them to be happy and to lead fulfilling lives.  The next time you see a kid, remember that that young person is leading a life and a very young age that we couldn't have imagined when we were that young, and show them some kindness and compassion, and let them know that there is at least one adult in their lives who cares about them and who cares about what they're going to be later in life.

You never know when your encouragement and caring will be just the thing that a young person needs as a catalyst that helps them to keep going, to keep trying, and simply to keep growing.

In a Different World

My wife and  I are in agreement recently--the world we live in isn't the world we grew up in.  And of course, immediately after a statement like that, it's tempting to say, "Nonsense--the world hasn't changed.  We're the ones who have changed, and we now see things differently."  And it's also quite tempting to believe this statement, to believe that the hopes and dreams that we grew up with are still valid, and still have the possibility of coming true.

But I don't think it's that simple.  Personally, I define the "world" as more than just the planet we live on.  It also includes the people we're with, the societies we've formed, the cultures that we've developed, the plants and animals that share the planet with us, and the many, many abstract concepts and ideas that we share, such as love, hope, peace, dreams, and compassion, among many others.  And unfortunately, there are a whole lot of other abstract concepts that are much more negative, much more harmful, but which have grown much, much stronger than they ever have been in my lifetime.

To start with the physical, though, of course this planet is not the same as it was when I was born.  Since then, we as human beings have continued to use the resources the planet holds, but we've done so unsustainably, without giving back much of anything to the planet itself.  We've destroyed forests, wetlands, mountains, rivers, and oceans, without doing much in the way of repair.  The ozone allows more radiation through than it used to, and the planet isn't able to cool itself as it used to, which has created a warming trend for the planet that threatens to destroy all the life on it.  Oceans are warming, icebergs and glaciers are melting, deserts are spreading, and the planet as a whole is getting hotter and hotter with each passing day.

These are scientific facts that have been well researched, yet many human beings just shake their heads and say there's no problem.  Which brings up the second reality--people are different than they used to be, for several very important reasons.  In general, people are more isolated, especially in what we call "first-world" countries.  In part, the isolation is stronger because of our penchant for living in our own houses, separate from everyone else.  Most Americans, I would guess, are pretty much slaves to their cars--most aren't within walking distance of a supermarket or store where they can get basic groceries.  If the kids have a game somewhere, a car is necessary to get them there.  Many people can go days without seeing any of their neighbors, for they simply go to their cars in the morning, drive to work, drive home and go indoors, where they stay until the next morning's journey to the car.

This is not a healthy environment to exist in, believe it or not.  And I believe that this physical distancing is a large part of what allows the distances in beliefs and perspectives to grow so great, to grow so strong.  The person who disagrees with me politically is now a threat to my way of life, my view of the world, and I'm not allowed to simply disagree--now there has to be conflict (but more on that later).  The most insidious aspect of this new dynamic is that when we're isolated, it's easier for us to see anyone "different" as a threat, and we react to threats more strongly than we react to disagreements.

As a teacher for the last thirty years or so, I've always been able to tell my students that they can get ahead if they're willing to work hard, to be true to themselves and their abilities, and to make certain short-term sacrifices in order to achieve long-term gains.  But I can't tell them that any more.  Young people today are facing a harsh and unforgiving world, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the cost of housing.  We used to be able to go out on our own at a young age--rent an apartment, get a job, save a little money and keep working towards something better.  But young people today can't do that.  The cost of housing is so high that many have to live with parents, or share the cost of even a simple apartment with others in order to afford it.

And why is housing so expensive?  Simply because the people who have money already have found new ways to use housing as a way to get even more money, and the money that they're adding to their portfolios has to come from somewhere.  Housing is being bought up by speculators, and it's being built and financed by people who want to maximize profit, which means that the people who want to buy or rent apartments or houses have to pay top dollar.  You don't have to look any further than the credit checks that are necessary just to rent an apartment now--many young people simply can't pass such credit checks because they haven't had time to establish credit yet.  And with student loans on their records, guess what?

We live in a different world, and it's impossible for us to know the feelings that the young people feel when they find door after door closed to them, through no fault of their own.  We're so caught up in trying to look out for number one that we're ignoring the effects that our actions are having on the young.

I could go on and on, and eventually, I shall--the world that we're presenting to our young people is significantly different than the world we grew up in, in many different ways.  And as someone who likes to encourage people to live their lives fully, I find it difficult to do so when those people have the decks stacked against them before they even start trying to make their ways into the world.

What this all means, I don't know yet.  But I'm going to keep exploring it until I find out or until I die, whichever comes first.  What does "Living Life Fully" mean in the world of today, and how can we make the concept a possibility for everyone, not just a privileged few?

Let's keep trying to figure it out, because even if the answer is buried out there somewhere, we aren't going to find it unless we look for it.

Life without Busyness

If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this
one utopian principle--absolute busyness--then utopia
and melancholy will come to coincide:  an age without conflict
will dawn, perpetually busy--and without consciousness.

Gunther Grass


I think we may be near the age that Gunther warned about, if we're not there already.  I've known plenty of people in my life who have been so extremely addicted to working that they hardly do anything else at all, and they rarely if ever have time available to spend with other people--even their own families.  And if they're satisfied with the results they're seeing, then who am I to tell them that what they're doing is harmful?  It's very common to watch other people make drastic mistakes that will harm them in the long term, but be unable to convince them that a change would help them because they see the world only in the short term.

One of my goals of the last couple of decades has been to not be too busy to enjoy life.  I didn't want to get so caught up in work and tasks around the house and other obligations that I wasn't able to do things that I enjoy, and spend time with people whose company I enjoy.  I found that it was relatively easy to do so, for it took some simple decision-making that was rather painless.  Personally, I like being a helpful person, but at time in my past I've been somewhat too helpful, and lost some valuable opportunities for some very nice experiences because I committed myself to help someone else.  Interestingly enough, whenever I've helped others, it's always seemed that they didn't really need much help at all, or that they could have easily done the job themselves.  My presence wasn't at all necessary, and my time could have been much better spent elsewhere.

Of course, that's not always true.  There are plenty of legitimate opportunities to help people and organizations that truly do need our help.  What I've learned, though, is that that person doesn't have to be me.  There are plenty of other people who are able to help just as well--or even better--than I can.  And if someone else is doing the work, I have time to do something that can be reinvigorating, rejuvenating, for me.

We face a lot of pressure to make ourselves busy meeting other people's needs.  Many other people have gotten very good at getting others to do their work for them, or at least a part of it.  The boss at work can pressure a subordinate to take on extra tasks; the person in a relationship with us can manipulate or guilt-trip us into spending our time on things we don't necessarily want to be doing.

Our task as human beings who are responsible for our own well-being is to make sure that we don't overextend or overcommit ourselves.  We need to be sure that we don't sabotage the chances we have to be happy and to live life on our own terms, rather than spending our precious time on tasks that we take on because others ask us to do so.  Personally, I'm working on this right now because I just retired, and I want to make sure that any time ahead of me is going to be spent wisely, with a balance between living and working, being busy doing tasks and being busy taking care of myself (see below).  No matter where we are in life, it may be a good idea to step back from the busyness and make sure that what we're spending our time on is fulfilling and healthy, and that we don't get so busy doing things for others that we spend no time doing things for ourselves.  Because we're each worth it.


I lied and said I was busy.
I was busy;
but not in a way most people understand.
I was busy taking deeper breaths.
I was busy silencing irrational thoughts.
I was busy calming a racing heart.
I was busy telling myself I am okay.
Sometimes, this is my busy -
and I will not apologize for it.

Brittin Oakman

From Whom Can I Learn?

If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will
happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly
harmed.  It is the person who continues in their self-deception
and ignorance who is harmed.     -Marcus Aurelius


What Marcus says here would not be received well by many people in the 21st-century United States.  Somehow, many people in this country have completely shut out the possibility that someone who disagrees with them may actually be right, so when we're wrong, we become "the person who continues in their self-deception and ignorance."  We won't even consider the possibility that someone we disagree with could teach us something, so a huge portion of the population, for us, is eliminated as a possible source of learning.

What has happened to the concept of having an open mind, of listening to others--no matter what their background--to see if they know something that we don't know, to see if they can teach us something?  Having an open mind means listening to what another person says without putting it through the filters that we so often employ:  What is their political party?  What is their gender?  What is their race?

And on and on.

If we want to live our lives fully, it's very important that we learn from virtually anyone.  That doesn't mean that we have to approve of their paths in life or of decisions that they make--it simply means that we hear what they say and weigh in our minds whether it makes sense or not, whether there's something to learn there or not.  If someone gives me good advice but I ignore it because of whom he voted for in the last election, then I'm going to limit myself and miss opportunities because I've been judgmental about another human being.  I can blame it on his or her vote if I want to, but the truth is that the fault lies with me and my unwillingness to listen.

What Marcus is talking about is our tendency to not want to be told that we're wrong.  If I were to take something that isn't mine, for example, and the guy next door told me that it was wrong to take it, would I respect his opinion more if he voted for the same person I voted for?  Because the truth of the matter is that my action was wrong, no matter who tells me so.  But if I can dismiss what the person tells me because I don't agree with him on politics, or because I know he's a racist, or because I know that he's done something wrong himself, then I'm losing out on an important learning experience.  And really, all we have in life is our learning--the only way to improve ourselves as human beings is to learn more about life and living, and people we agree with or respect aren't the only possible teachers out there.

Criticism is often much easier to take when it comes from someone we know and trust.  We tend to be more willing to listen to people who have a track record of supporting us rather than putting us down or arguing with us.  But we really should be able and willing to listen to everyone who has something to say about what we do.  And once it's said, then we can decide whether the words are meant to help us or to hurt us, if the words have been constructive or destructive.  And once we've figured that out, it's up to us to take the words to heart or to reject them, to make changes based on what we've heard or to continue on in the same ways as before.

My self-deception helps no one, and it can cause a lot of harm.  Some of the most important things that I've learned in life have come from people I didn't even like, especially in the form of teachers at all levels from grade school to college.  The teachers I've liked have taught me a great deal, but so have the teachers I haven't liked at all.  If I'm doing something very wrong, I hope to be told so, so that I can make some changes that will allow me to get things right, and that will thus allow me to help others more often and more effectively, which is, after all, my main purpose for being here (at least, that's what I believe it to be).
  
  
  

   
   

Finding Happiness in Connection

On our own, feeling alienated from the world we had been
created from, cut off from the full extent of its abundance,
people were no longer happy.  We began to search for the
happiness we had lost.  When we found something that
reminded us of it, we tried to possess it and accumulate
more--thereby introducing Stress into our lives.  But searching
for lasting happiness and accumulating temporary
substitutes for it brought us no satisfaction.    -Benjamin Hoff, The Te of Piglet

When he's using the word "us," Hoff is talking about the people who live in western societies, those places where success has been defined as earning more money and having more things, and those people who have unique skills and talents end up working for some corporate giant or another, never using those skills and letting life slip by without developing their skills in ways that can help others.  It's hard for us to imagine now, but many people used to be able to find happiness without having much to do.  They didn't have computers with which to spend their spare hours; they didn't have movies and television shows that could help them to "escape" reality every now and then; they didn't have boatloads of activities to partake in to keep their minds off of themselves and the lives that they're leading.

Of course, just because people didn't have all of these things in their lives didn't mean that they were necessarily happy.  There were many problems that people dealt with in the past that we don't have to face today--family and friends dying from what are now minor illnesses and injuries; being "stuck" in the town you were born in, without having a real option of leaving; having to take on the family trade for the rest of your life even though you end up doing something that you don't really like.  These are just a few of the many ways that life was harder for many people in the past than it is today.

I don't know if even Hoff could tell us when we started to feel "alienated from the world we had been created from."  My guess is that it's long, long, long ago, because we are now truly separated, most of us completely.  There are many people who never spend any time in nature, even for a walk in the park.  Most of us use the natural world as a short-term escape from what basically has ended up being our lives:  stress, work, tension, deadlines, judgment, conflict.  Many of us do search out activities that can help us balance these things, but doing that doesn't eliminate the effects that the modern world has on us; rather, it simply provides us with moments of clarity and even happiness, but these are moments that we almost inevitably leave behind us in order to go back to our daily lives.

So are things hopeless?  I don't think so.  Can our happy moments be extended and expanded, meaning that we're happier more often than not?  I think they can.

So does Hoff, of course.  His first sentence tells us very clearly that he sees the way to be happy as not "feeling alienated from the world we had been created from."  This simply means looking at the lives that we're living and identifying the things that we do that alienate us from the world.  Do we spend too much time indoors, being entertained passively by television or Internet?  Do we spend too much time in our cars, never going for walks and feeling the fresh air and smelling and hearing the world around us?

Do we make time for experiences with the natural world, including getting together to talk with friends?  They're a part of the natural world, too, but we see them so rarely, or only during certain occasions, like church services or activities at our kids' schools.  Do we know someplace where we can buy tomatoes straight off the vine instead of buying them at the supermarket, where they're typically anywhere from one to six weeks old.  Do we have any places in nature where we can go for some simple quiet time, where we can listen to nothing but the sounds of the birds and bugs and any animals, and simply enjoy not having anything that we have to be doing at the present moment?

We don't need to become hermits, and we don't have to go for extended camping trips in the middle of nowhere if we want to counter the alienation that we feel from nature.  We simply need to make decisions that put us with it and in it.  Instead of a trip to the mall, a hike could be invigorating.  Instead of another lunch in a restaurant or fast-food joint, a picnic lunch by a lake or in a park can give us energy and raise our spirits.  Many, many people have pointed to our loss of connection with nature as a major cause of unhappiness, so perhaps it's time to pay attention to them and make some sort of connection that can help us to feel more at home in the world.

I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush
of scenery-- air, mountains, trees,
people.  I thought, "This is what
it is to be happy.”

Sylvia Plath