A Season for Sharing Love

We get it all wrong if we think that Christmas is anything but a season for love.  From the origin of the day--the story of a woman and a man who traveled far and ended up in a stable where their child was born--to this very moment, the heart of Christmas is love.  If we see it as anything other than that, we're looking at it through a warped perspective--not necessarily a negative or terrible perspective, but a warped one nonetheless.  And that happens--we can get so caught up in buying gifts and preparing food and decorating the house and buying and wrapping presents that we stop seeing the holiday for what it truly is:  an opportunity to share love with the people whom we love.

When we think of the origins of all that we do, the love is quite obvious.  We invite friends and family to our homes because we want to share what we have, and we want to show the love that we feel for them.  And when friends and families are coming over, we naturally want to cook for them--sharing a meal is one of the oldest and most common traditions that is based on sharing love, for when we feed someone else, we're literally contributing to helping them live.

We buy gifts for people because we think of what they need or would like to have, and we want to provide for that need or fulfill that desire, simply because we love them, not because we want anything from them.  We spend time thinking of or looking for just the right gift for each person, and then we purchase it or make it for them, just because we want to show that person how much we care for them.  After all, if we can give just the right gift, then we show that we actually know a person, and how many of us feel loved when someone else knows us well enough to know what we like?  I know that I do.

I think that much of the stress of Christmas comes from taking on too many tasks--too many ways to show others that we love them.  Rather than enjoying simple holidays with simple gifts, we tend to feel that what we have to offer just isn't enough, so we decide to offer more.  After all, more is better, right?  Not at all.

Showing our love is a tremendously important part of our lives, but when we try to overdo it, a lot of things can happen.  We get stressed because we have so many things to do, and when that happens, what we're doing becomes less an act of love and more a task that has to be done.  When we don't see what we're doing as something that benefits those we love, we see it as something else, don't we?  If we can focus on the love, we can do the tasks lovingly; if we're worried that we won't finish baking in time to wrap all the presents, then we start to feel stress and our baking is one of the causes of stress.

We've all seen it happen:  good people with good hearts take on too much and they become cranky and stressed.  They snap at people and they're not in nearly as good a mood as they usually are.  Because they're stressed, the work that they're doing loses much of its meaning and they may even start to resent the work.  The love becomes secondary, or even tertiary--if it's even there at all any more.  And Christmas becomes, in their eyes, almost an enemy, a time of the year that brings stress and frustration and hectic days and nights.

Of course, it doesn't have to be that way.  We can refrain from trying to do everything for everyone, and when that question comes up, "If I don't do, who will?", then maybe the best answer is "No one."  Perhaps that particular task doesn't need to be done this Christmas, and we can take a step towards simplifying our holiday season.  Or perhaps there's someone else who is more than willing to do that certain task--a young child who wants to take on a new responsibility, maybe--and we can make things easier on ourselves by letting someone else do some of the things we normally feel that we need to do.

It is a shame when we lose the beauty of the season to the stress of the season.  But we really do have a choice in the matter--it's not always an easy choice, but the choice is there.  And one thing I know for sure from experience is that I would much rather do without certain things and see the people I love enjoying the holiday than have "everything" at the cost of some people I love being so stressed out that they forget the message of love around which this holiday is based.  Be the loving person, and put yourself in a position in which you're fully present to each moment the season brings, sharing your love actively with the people around you.  You'll feel much better when you do so, and just as importantly, the people you love will be glad to have the full, loving you present.

A Diverse World

I don’t paint things.  I only paint the difference between things.
Henri Matisse


Sometimes, differences are the most important parts of our world.  If there weren't differences between people and things and colors and sounds, our lives would be devoid of diversity and art and music.  While differences are definitely something that should be celebrated by all of us, we unfortunately seem to react negatively to many of them.  If someone doesn't do something the "right" way, if someone is wearing "weird" clothes or even "acting weird," we tend to react in ways that tell that person that he or she is doing something wrong by not conforming to the "norms" that are so important to us.

But if I'm a green and you're a yellow, that's a wonderful thing.  And it's wonderful simply because it is so, not because of any sort of inherent value in either of the colors.  What tends to happen to us, though, is that we like to fit in ourselves, so I would tend to gravitate towards other greens.  I feel safe if I do so because we share something very important, and I'm never going to get mocked for my color by other greens, because they're green, too.  And once I'm together with other greens, we like to look for things that set us apart from others in order to reinforce our self-images.  We greens, after all, believe in A, B, and C, while I met a yellow yesterday who actually believes in D and E--those yellows sure are strange, aren't they?

But Matisse understands something very important from an artist's perspective:  our differences are worth looking at because they're what allow us to distinguish between things.  On a canvas, the ocean is blue and the sky is a different shade of blue--or even yellow or red if you're painting a sunset.  Or the ocean can be grey, and the sky a different shade of grey.  The trees are green while the pond is blue and the flowers are yellow and red.  The differences make the things stand out, and we don't fault an artist for pointing out the differences between yellow flowers and red ones.

For some reason, though, we may find it offensive to point out that one person's skin is darker or lighter than ours.  We stay quiet and don't talk about someone else's sexuality, because it's their business.

The important thing to remember, though, is that if no judgment is included in a statement, it's not offensive.  If a person is simply making an observation, then what's the problem?  Your skin is darker than mine.  Cool.  You're gay, and I'm not.  No big deal.  The problems arise when we tie in judgment with our observations--then we're judging others for something as simple as the pigments in their skin, or something as private and personal as their sexual preferences, or for their gender or age.

Matisse didn't judge when he painted differences.  If he saw blue, I hope that he used blue paint to represent what he saw.  Can you imagine an artist with this plan:  "I won't paint any yellow flowers because yellow flowers aren't as good as orange ones"?  It would be ridiculous.

Our differences make for an amazing world.  None of us really want to imagine a world of identical beings thinking in identical ways and doing identical things--it would be a horrible nightmare.  We really must celebrate our differences and accept others just as they are if we're really going to live full and fulfilling lives, for not to do so would be to deny the diversity of life, to limit ourselves to what we consider to be safe, while judging things that make us uncomfortable.  And once we start judging other things, we'll never actually learn from them--and that's a terrible tragedy.


More on diversity

Enjoying Winter Months

I recently discovered that there are two ways of looking at winter--the calendar way, which I'm used to, and the meteorological way, which I'm also used to on an intuitive level.  The calendar way, of course, has winter starting on December 21 or so, and ending on March 21 or so.  This is how I've learned to see winter all my life, and it's pretty much my go-to way of seeing the season.

But I like much better the idea of winter being the months of December, January and February.  I like the fact that the other version of seeing the seasons seems to be more natural, more in tune with what really happens on our planet.

If we follow the meteorological way of looking at the world and its weather, then we just started winter, and I'm fine with that.  I like winter--I like the cold, I like the coziness that the darker days and the harsher weather bring into our lives.  In summer, I often feel restless if I'm indoors working--I want to be outside, doing something.  In winter, though, it's very easy to pick up a book and curl up at one end of the couch and immerse myself in a novel or a good piece of non-fiction.  Sometimes I may even want to turn on a good movie on a dreary afternoon, something that I almost never do during the seasons of better weather.

I also find that people are more willing to settle in and spend time together when the weather outside isn't so inviting.  Winter is a time when get-togethers last a little longer and run a little more deeply.  People tend to be in less of a hurry, for they haven't made so many plans, it seems.  They're willing to just be, to have a cup of hot chocolate or coffee or tea and sit for a while and enjoy each other's company.

Of course, these are all tendencies, and not rules.  There are people who are still always on the go whatever the weather, and people who need to be outdoors even if there's a blizzard going on.  But for me, the intimacy of the season is one of its greatest beauties, and what we do with our winters is completely up to us.  When I hear people complain about winter because of the weather, I hear someone who hasn't yet learned the beauty of simply sitting down and reading for a while, or spending time with others indoors rather than outdoors.

In the winter, I get more writing done, and I work on crafts more.  I don't get to go on long bike rides or long runs nearly as much as I do in the summer, but I do get to spend that time baking something really good or making something really good.  I can spend time playing board games with others or making puzzles on my own--the season doesn't rob us of the opportunities to do fun and special things; rather, it gives us a chance to live in tune with the seasons and do the things that the season offers and allows.

Winter's not a penalty.  It's not punishment.  Winter simply is, and it is what it is.  If we want to pass pleasant winters and get the most of what they offer, then it's up to us to recognize what the season has to offer, accept the fact that it doesn't offer what it doesn't offer, and take full advantage of the opportunities at hand rather that wishing there were other opportunities available.  Winter is a beautiful seasons in more ways than just the weather, and I'm looking forward to taking advantage of the world that winter has to offer, without trying to make it into anything it isn't.  Winter's a beautiful season, and I want to take advantage of that beauty.

Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments,
embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour.   -John Boswell
http://livinglifefully.com/winter.htm


(Meteorologists and climatologists break the seasons down into groupings of three months based on the annual temperature cycle as well as our calendar. We generally think of winter as the coldest time of the year and summer as the warmest time of the year, with spring and fall being the transition seasons, and that is what the meteorological seasons are based on. Meteorological spring includes March, April, and May; meteorological summer includes June, July, and August; meteorological fall includes September, October, and November; and meteorological winter includes December, January, and February.
from https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/meteorological-versus-astronomical-seasons

Thanks

Our fireplace is on right now.  It's a gas fireplace, so I had to download an mp3 of the crackling sound of the fire, and I have that playing whenever the fireplace is on.  This is only the second home I've ever lived in that has a fireplace, so I'm very happy that it's here, and I'm very grateful for it--right now, it's about ten degrees outside, so the fire that we have going is actually necessary to keep us warm enough to survive through temperatures like this.  We have heat (for which I'm also grateful), but during the day we need to heat only the living space we're in, not the other rooms, so this fireplace is a very useful feature to have.

And I'm very grateful for it.  It keeps us warm, it's beautiful, it's safe, and it creates an extremely cozy atmosphere in our living room, an atmosphere that I appreciate and love.  It's just one of the many things in my life for which I'm thankful, and it's really important to me to keep those things in mind and to keep gratitude at the forefront of my life--for as David Steindl-Rast once said, gratitude is what brings joy into our lives.

It's kind of easy to feel gratitude for something that I like so much--but what about the things that aren't nearly as aesthetically pleasing--such as plumbing, for example, or readily available fuel for my car?  Our world is simply full of things for which we can and should be grateful, for which we should be ready and willing to give thanks at any given moment.  Books, music, light, art, windows, cupboards, tables, wood, blankets, comfortable couches--these are all things for which I'm tremendously grateful, and it's a list that I made simply by looking around myself for a couple of moments.  A longer look would yield a much longer list, I'm sure.

But we spend far too much time, it seems, focusing on those things we lack, those things we wish we had, but don't.  I'm not one of those who believe in the over-simplified theory that "if you don't have it, you weren't meant to have it," but I am one who believes that it's much more useful and helpful to focus on what we do have with a feeling of gratitude than it is to focus on that which is missing with feelings of regret or resentment or lack.  My life changes significantly when my focus is on gratitude, and I don't want my life to be focused on what I'm missing, for what isn't here truly isn't relevant at the moment, unless it's something that I'm working hard at getting or achieving.

In her song "Three Gratitudes," Carrie Newcomer writes:

Every night before I go to sleep
I say out loud
Three things that I’m grateful for,
All the significant, insignificant
Extraordinary, ordinary stuff of my life.
It’s a small practice and humble,
And yet, I find I sleep better
Holding what lightens and softens my life
Ever so briefly at the end of the day.
Sunlight, and blueberries,
Good dogs and wool socks,
A fine rain,
A good friend,
Fresh basil and wild phlox,
My father’s good health,
My daughter’s new job,
The song that always makes me cry,
Always at the same part,
No matter how many times I hear it.
Decent coffee at the airport,
And your quiet breathing,
The stories you told me,
The frost patterns on the windows,
English horns and banjos,
Wood Thrush and June bugs,
The smooth glassy calm of the morning pond,
An old coat,
A new poem,
My library card,
And that my car keeps running
Despite all the miles.
(visit Carrie at carrienewcomer.com for some
amazing music and poetry!)


And I don't think that I could have said it any better.

Please have a happy Thanksgiving, and keep your many blessings in mind as you make your way through the remaining days of your life!

Still Getting to Know Me

I just read these words by Pema Chodron:

"Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better.  It's about befriending who we are already."

They really do resonate with me because I've spent most of my life trying to "fix" me, trying to become a "better" person.  Fortunately, though, I say "most" of my life because more recently, I've come to a point of my life at which I'm willing to accept myself exactly as I am, without being such a harsh judge of myself that I make my own life miserable.  I've made tons of mistakes, and many of them have harmed other people, but they've been mistakes.  I've learned from them and I've moved on, always trying to work towards being the person I'm meant to be.

Of course, I couldn't define to you in words what "the person I'm meant to be" actually means, but I can feel it.  I can feel that that person is supposed to share love in the best ways I know how; to give in the best ways I know how to the people who need; to teach; to grow; to encourage and inspire rather than discourage and cause despair.

But I like how Pema uses the word "befriending."  It's one thing to accept myself as I am, and quite another to befriend that person.  The mere idea of befriending ourselves suggests a duality, one that I feel is accurate--the self of the mind and the self of the spirit.  When we bring those two things together, the resulting unity can be one of the most empowering forces that we'll ever know.

I think that on those days when everything seems to click, when everything falls together and we feel strong and capable and confident in all that we do--those are the days when our minds and our spirits are working in harmony.  They've joined together in friendship or partnership--however you choose to view it--and our resulting behaviors give us a strength that we simply wish we had every day.  Is it possible that we can have it every day?  I do believe so.

While Pema is talking about befriending ourselves through meditation, I don't think that we absolutely must sit in meditation to make this happen--or at least, we need to find our own forms of meditation if we want to befriend ourselves and gain the strength of unity.  For me, running is my main source of meditation--a way to clear my mind and allow it to settle.  I also like to read passages and quotations and then simply sit and ponder them for a while.  Music is also an important part of my life, and it often allows me to transcend what is happening in the moment and feel a part of something larger, vaster.

But we can also befriend ourselves through our internal conversations, those times when we get mad at ourselves for doing something silly.  I like to come to my own defense, telling myself, "Wait a minute.  Yes, that was silly, but every other person on this planet does silly things, too.  Don't get down on yourself for a simple mistake.  Don't judge yourself harshly because you've done something that other people disapprove of--just because they disapprove of it doesn't mean that it's wrong."

It's an odd idea, I know, defending myself from myself, but it's something that I do pretty regularly.  I've grown up being pretty judgmental, especially of myself, and it's taken me a very long time to work through that tendency--and I'm not there yet.  Thus, my need to defend myself from myself.

I want to be my own friend not just because it will benefit me, but because it can also benefit others.  No matter how we choose to truly and authentically befriend ourselves, it's a good idea to get started now so that you can have a long and valuable friendship with a person who will very much appreciate you and who you are.

I Accept You (Just as You Are)

Acceptance is an interesting thing, isn't it?  I hear a lot of people claim that they accept other people, but I also hear a lot of conditions on that acceptance.  "I really like her, but if only she didn't talk so much."  "You can be a part of our group, as long as your religious beliefs coincide with ours."  Partners try to put pressure on their significant others to wear different clothes or get a different hair style or to act in different ways around friends or family.  Parents constantly let their kids know (often inadvertently) that they'd be much more acceptable if they cleaned their rooms or did better in school or stopped hanging around certain someones.

Most of us would say that we're pretty accepting of others.  Most of us feel that we're pretty tolerant and understanding of differences, and that we celebrate diversity, yet our words and actions often contradict these claims.  Personally, I feel that I'm a pretty accepting person, but being so takes a lot of attention and effort:  I'm often ready to write someone off because of a particular trait, and I have to remind myself that I'm not on this planet to judge others and reject them.  Rather, I'm here to live and let live and not try to make other people live their lives in the ways that I think they should.  Once I start trying to change other people--or try to convince them that they should change to please me--I'm doing something that really is quite unacceptable.

And I've done it much more than I'd like to admit over the course of my life.  To give myself credit, though, I have changed this tendency, though again, it does take effort.

You are as you are, and that's something to celebrate, not criticize.  You may make mistakes (we all do) and you may hurt other people (we all do) and you may be immature (we all are in some ways) and possibly even arrogant (ditto), but I really need to accept you for exactly what you are--because not accepting you won't change anything.

And here's the kicker:  the fact that I accept you exactly as you are does not mean that I have to let you be a part of my life.  If the truth of who you are is truly negative and/or harmful, then I would be making a huge mistake by letting you into my life.  If your negativity is too strong, letting you into my life could bring me down significantly.  Doing so could raise my stress level, cause me undue tension, worry me constantly, or even put me in danger.  If you're the kind of person who is going to manipulate me, I accept that--but I'm not going to allow you to manipulate me.  If you're the kind of person who's going to steal from me, same thing.  You are who you are and it's not up to me to change you if you choose to be this way, but I don't want you in my life.  Are you often drunk?  Well, sorry--I choose to live a life that doesn't include alcohol abuse, and your life doesn't fit very well into that plan.

One of the obvious problems of allowing someone into your life exactly as they are is the horrible effect they can have on your life if you do so.  We all know (or at least know of) women who refuse to accept the fact that their partner is abusive.  We know of people who marry alcoholics because they refuse to accept that this person they love may have such a destructive trait.  They deny that the behaviors they see are real, and thus end up paying a very high price for that denial--and many children pay that price, too.

So acceptance is extremely positive in at least two ways:  when we accept someone for being exactly who they are and don't try to change them; and when we accept the fact that someone isn't exactly the best person to have in our lives and we make the decision not to have them as such as long as the negative behaviors continue.  Acceptance becomes less positive when we accept someone just as they are, even when the person they are is someone who's bound to hurt us--in that case, the "acceptance" seems more like denial, and it truly can cause harm.

So let's be careful how we define the term, and let's be careful to whom we extend our acceptance.  Remember, it's important to accept the fact that a person is addicted to drugs, but it's not healthy to accept that person "just as they are."  On the other hand, if their behavior or way of being doesn't harm others, then our acceptance may be one of the best things we can share with them as they realize that someone does, indeed, love them just as they are.

Constant Conflict

It truly frustrates me to see just how much we've normalized conflict these days.  It's everywhere and it seems to be unavoidable--from politics to sports to entertainment to relationships to people struggling to get rights, conflict seems to be the driving force behind our society these days.  After all, conflict gets you more news coverage than simply doing what you're supposed to do.  Conflict grabs headlines, while simply doing our jobs well gets us very little recognition; imposing our own ideas on how things should be gets us more attention than letting others be as they are and accepting them and their lifestyles.

Constant conflict is a sign of a lack of acceptance.  We don't want things to be as they are--we want them changed.  "Those people shouldn't be living that way" is an invitation to conflict from the people who are going to defend those people's rights to live as they wish.  Many people see acceptance as a weakness, but it really is one of the strongest ways of living our lives that we have.  When I accept you just as you are, then there's no need for me to start any conflict with you because I don't see any need for you to change--not your lifestyle, not your sexual orientation, not your mind.  You are as you are, and that's fine as long as you're not harming others.

We can disagree with each other--we can even have arguments about things we believe and still get along very well.  Unfortunately, though, we tend to see conflict now as a sign that we aren't getting along, that this person really isn't a friend if we don't see eye-to-eye about immigration or the Women's World Cup.  Because so much of our conflict these days has to do with judgment, we all turn our defense mechanisms to high as soon as someone disagrees with us because we don't want to be judged, and rightly so.  Judgment is a way of telling someone that they're right or wrong, even though virtually none of us are truly in a position to be able to judge other people.  We can most certainly disagree with them, but the words "judge not and you shall not be judged" are rather timeless, though these days we may need to change them to "I'll judge you but you'd better not judge me."

This constant conflict is making it difficult to simply relax and enjoy life, to get the most out of each day that we live.  It's difficult to relax when we don't know when someone else is going to judge us and criticize us for our actions or our beliefs.  It's hard to enjoy the day when we have no idea what the next source of conflict is going to show up--and it may show up on social media, where we're criticized in front of potentially the entire world.  How many posts on Facebook telling us that this person has done something horrible have turned out to be completely false, yet we've passed them on and helped to perpetuate the conflict with a simple click of a mouse?

It's no wonder that our young people are both hyper-critical and hyper-sensitive these days.  To them, conflict is the norm they've grown up witnessing, and it's only a matter of time before it affects them, too--if it hasn't already.  While they tend to put on brave faces and shrug off the fact that they face attacks on social media if they're not careful, and criticism from many people who have come to view conflict as "normal," and potential conflict about every choice they may make from politics to clothing that they wear, the truth is that this wears them down and makes it very difficult for them to truly live their lives fully.

It's difficult to write about this topic in a truly cohesive way because it's one that deserves a book or three, not just a few paragraphs.  I believe that my main point is that our world needs more of us to pull back from the conflict, to allow others to be just what they are without judging or criticizing them.  We can be that "safe person" to whom others can come when they want a word of encouragement or a listening ear instead of more conflict and stress.  And we can teach our young people that while conflict does happen, it's not necessarily as important as we make it out to be.  We don't all have to jump into every argument with our own perspective; we don't need to try to make others believe what we believe.

Our world has enough conflict.  While we don't want to ignore injustice when we see it, let us pick and choose our battles so that we're involved in that conflict only when absolutely necessary, only when we're defending the rights of those who are losing their rights, only when helping others who are unable to help themselves.  Let us accept more and criticize less, and let us be the beacons of peace and understanding that others can depend on when they need some peace and understanding in their lives.  We can live fully in a world full of constant conflict, but doing so requires a constant series of decisions on our part, and a constant commitment to contributing to the positive energy of the world rather than the negative.

Preventing Cognitive Dissonance

Dissonance is an amazing thing.  It makes most of us very uncomfortable, yet we don't do nearly enough to avoid it, for the most part.  Cognitive dissonance occurs when we have inconsistent or contradictory thoughts or beliefs, or when our actions don't match our beliefs.  For example, if I believe that politicians should be honest and I vote for someone whom I know isn't honest just because he's someone I know, then dissonance is bound to occur.  I've violated my commitment to honesty, and I can't help but feel something negative for having done so.

It's very important that we do our best not to allow ourselves to create dissonance in our lives, and not to allow others to do so.  If you believe that drinking to excess is wrong yet you allow a friend to talk you into getting drunk, only part of the problem lies in the fact that you got drunk.  A significant part of the problem is that you've violated a belief that you hold dear, and you have to live with that fact now.

It's extremely common for cognitive dissonance to rear its head in our lives.  We believe in staying true to our spouse, yet we feel attracted to another person.  We believe that it's important to be honest in our financial dealings, yet we fudge on our taxes in the spring, or neglect to point out an error that benefits us on a contract.  And what we usually do in order to deal with the dissonance is called rationalization--we come up with explanations that justify our actions in order to make ourselves feel better.

But the dissonance is still there.  We've just thrown a blanket over it in order not to be able to see it.

As hard as it is to accept, the only way to truly avoid cognitive dissonance in our lives is to be completely true to our beliefs and ideals.  We can't say anything that we don't believe, and we can't act in ways that contradict those beliefs and ideals.  This is rather difficult to do, though, because other people are in our lives, and they very often cause us to do things that we normally wouldn't consider doing.

It can be something as simple as wanting to focus on the positive as much as possible, then having a co-worker constantly talk about negative aspects of your jobs, making you feel more and more negative the more that person talks.  Dissonance can come into your life when you promise yourself to be more patient with your child, but then the child does something to challenge that patience, and you lose it.  Not only do you lose your patience, but you break your promise to yourself at the same time.

So we need to clarify things in our lives if we're going to avoid certain things.  For example, I already know that I'm going to say no to the vast majority of alcoholic drinks that are offered to me, and that I'll never drink more than two of anything.  I've dealt with enough alcoholism to last me for two or three lifetimes, and I'm not going to go down that road myself.  And when I stay true to that promise, I'm not going to have to get angry and/or frustrated with myself for doing something that I definitely didn't want to do.

I'm not going to vote for anyone who violates ideals that I hold dear, no matter how much that person's policies will benefit me.  I'm going to avoid arguments that may cause me to say something that I'm going to feel bad about later.

And speaking of the words "feel bad," they often apply directly to cognitive dissonance.  You might have said something bad about a friend, and now you feel bad about it--the feeling is the dissonance you feel for having done something that violates your principles.  In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz says that one of the agreements is to be impeccable with your word, to speak with integrity.  Integrity means wholeness, which means that we can't split ourselves apart with our words--in other words, think one thing and say another, or say one thing and mean another.  If we want to avoid the dissonance, we have to have some pre-made decisions that we can stick to when we're faced with dilemmas that can be harmful to us.

If you want to prevent dissonance in your life, that bad feeling that you've done something wrong, then you need to stick with what you know is right in your words, in your actions, and in your reactions.  You need to avoid situations as much as possible that will cause you to violate your principles and ideals.  You need to be honest with yourself as to your motives, and not rationalize actions that are wrong in order to make yourself feel better about having done something that you know you shouldn't have.

You will face cognitive dissonance.  We all do.  But you can easily minimize it by making the decision now to do always what you know to be right and what you know not to be harmful to others.  And if we have a lot of pre-made choices, things become even easier.

Living with Privilege--Is It a Problem?

I'm looking forward to today, because there really is no other way to approach this day that's going to happen whether I like it or not.  I'm fortunate because there's nothing planned for today that I'm going to dread--no awful meetings or trainings or court dates or potentially unpleasant situations that I know about lay before me.  Even on days that promise such situations, though, it is possible to look forward to the day in general, knowing that it may have some moments that aren't so nice.  After all, each day holds much to experience and much to learn, and even the unpleasant experiences can teach us much about ourselves and life.

So I'm looking forward to today--so what?  Does that mean that I'm one of the privileged people who have everything that I need and don't have to worry about where my next meal is going to come from?  It's pretty easy to look forward to a day when that's the case, isn't it?  I don't have any relatives who make my life miserable; I'm old enough to make my own decisions without my parents controlling me; I live in a place where I don't have to worry about my safety as I walk around town.  While I'm not wealthy at all and my wife and I need to do all we can to keep expenses down, I do have many privileges that others don't share.  The important thing is that I acknowledge those privileges and appreciate the heck out of them, because they do make my life much more pleasant in many ways.

That said, though, it's also important that I give myself a bit of credit--where I live and how I live have a lot to do with choices that I've made in the past.  When I chose the career that I was going to pursue, when my wife and I chose the place where we wanted to live, when we chose not to spend extravagantly as soon as we have a little bit of money, we made choices that would have obvious effects on each day of our lives from then on.  And while we still have trying days from time to time, the choices that we've made in the past have been, as much as possible, to follow our hearts and help other people and not focus on money or power or luxury.  We certainly like to have a bit of money in the bank just in case, but the work we've chosen has always been work that somehow contributes to the lives of others.  And that helps us to look forward to each workday, knowing that we are doing something that does make a difference to someone.

There are people who will try to make us feel guilty for having privilege, but I'll have none of that.  As long as I take full advantage of all that's available to me and I don't abuse it or take it for granted, then I'm simply living the life I was given.  As long as I don't try to put anyone else down in order to maintain what I have, then I'm okay.

I believe that the most important thing to keep in mind is that with privilege comes responsibility.  Because we have privilege, it's up to us to take advantage of that privilege to do what we can for others, when we can.  That doesn't mean that we have to spend sixty hours a week working with underprivileged people--we don't need to give up the good parts of our lives just because others don't have the same things.  But we do need to find ways that we can use what we have to help to improve the lives of others.  We all have our special gifts that we can use to contribute to life, even in small ways, and if we don't have to scrape and struggle to get by, that means that we should have some time and some resources that we can share.

How can we do this?  Again, small ways are appropriate for most of us.  Many supermarkets have donation boxes for local food banks; many thrift stores that specialize in providing for the underprivileged can use some of the things that we have so that they can go to someone who may need them more than we do; underprivileged students may need tutoring in something we know or mentoring, working on life skills; many churches have groups and programs that work with and for people who have experienced loss or who are having a difficult time making ends meet.

The important thing for ourselves, though, is that we don't take for granted the privileges that we do have.  If we're able to appreciate that privilege and make the most of it in the form of contributions to others, then we'll definitely be living our lives fully and making the most of the lives we've been given.

What Have We Done to--or for-- Our Young People?

I had a good discussion today with a friend about young people, about the world that they've grown up in and just how different that world is than the one in which we grew up.  Their worlds have been completely different from day one than the worlds that we knew when we were younger.  We talked about how many people criticize the youth of today for many different things, and how unfair that seems given the things that these young people have gone through.  Many of the problems that they face are a direct result of the actions of their predecessors (us), and I think it would be a good idea to stop criticizing them so much and instead think of ways to help them to cope with the world that we've made.

It really isn't an easy world to live in.  And while I don't want to sound like I'm pointing fingers and blaming my generation for everything, I think that it's important that we take responsibility for making their worlds a bit more difficult to grow up in, in many ways.

How? you may ask.  Well, I'll tell you.  First of all, we've created a very expensive world to live in, without creating jobs that pay well enough for people to get by comfortably.  We used to assume that if we worked hard, we would be able to make ends meet rather easily--in fact, we used to be able to get by with just one adult in a household working, with the other staying home to take care of the household.  Now, though, couples are struggling even with two adults working.  Housing is absurdly expensive and wages are absurdly low.  Pay raises have not kept up with inflation, making everything from groceries to cars to books more expensive for our young people than they ever were for us.  They're struggling greatly in the world we've made, and we're not doing much to help them, in general.

Our younger generations are the first to have been exposed to advertising as consistently and as aggressively as they have.  Ads invade their private lives now, and they're customized for individuals on computers and phones.  When we keep in mind that the major purpose of advertising is to make its targets feel a sense of dissatisfaction so that they'll buy something in particular in search of satisfaction, we realize that these young people have been told over and over and over again that their lives are not complete, that they need more to be happy, that they won't be all that they can be until they own certain things.  And the ads aren't just on devices--they're also more dominant on clothing, products, vehicles, sides of buildings--you name it.  How can we expect them to feel good about themselves when they're constantly bombarded with messages that tell them they shouldn't?

We've lowered the funding of our schools so much that the level of education that our children receive is, in general, pathetically low.  That's not their fault--we're so against paying taxes in general that we refuse to pay taxes to cover education, and it's our children who are suffering the consequences.  We're willing to pay over $100 for dinner and a movie, over $200 for a day at an amusement park, over $500 for a concert or a football game, yet we refuse to pay $150 a year in taxes to benefit our children by providing them with a high-quality education.  Is that fair to them?

American used to be a country of hope, and most of us grew up with a great deal of hope.  Nowadays, many still see hope, but many more just see despair.  Hope is essential to having a great life--hope of change, hope of progress, hope of better things in the future.  Our young people, though, don't have nearly as much to be hopeful for.  Our economy has become skewed to favor the very wealthy, and because most of our money is going to a very few very wealthy people and corporations, it's not being spread out among the people.  So what do they have to spend on necessities and recreation?  Not much, indeed.  What do they have to look forward to in the future if things continue as they're going now?  Not much, indeed.

"Addiction" used to be a negative word in our society.  We recognized that addictions were something that could ruin our lives--there was no way that being addicted to something could help one to lead a positive, fulfilling life.  Now, though, the word is thrown about almost like a joke because so many people see addictions to things like cell phones and video games as something almost even positive.  The truth is, though, that addictions still make us take time away from things that are important to us, things like family and work and relationships.  The four hours that man just spent on the video game could have been four hours developing his relationship with his daughter.  That time you just spent scrolling through social media sites could have been spent learning more about your job or talking to a good friend.  When we teach young people that addictions aren't just okay, but sometimes even good, we're doing them a great disservice.

There's more--much more.  There's climate change, pollution, plastic everywhere, scarce water, chemical-infused foods, extinct species of animals.  I can write about environmental issues later, but that's it for now.  I don't want to go on with the negative on a blog that's supposed to be about the positive.  So what can we do about this situation that our young people are facing?  How can we help them to lead happy and fulfilling lives (while keeping in mind that happiness and fulfillment come from inside, and that we can't change their lives or perspectives for them)?

First of all, and most importantly, we need to stop criticizing them and their generations for what we perceive as their faults.  They're living in a world that we developed, and they didn't have any choices about the lives that we've offered them as a society.  We need to encourage them to find ways to seek out fulfillment, and we need to educate them about some of the negative aspects of this world that we created.  We need to let them know that not everything about this world that we've developed is good (plastic oceans, anyone?), and that they will need to find solutions to problems that we've created.

We need to support them in their search for solutions.  The things that they do will have to be different from the things that we did if there's to be any improvement, and we need to accept the fact that they won't be doing things like we did them, and support them in their efforts to make changes.

In short, we need to love them.  They're deserving of our love.  Our love won't solve their problems and it will appear to be an empty gesture to many, but it's one of the few things that we can give unconditionally, and if we offer our love, they can face the changes that they're being forced to make with stronger hearts and a greater feeling of community.

They face a terribly difficult series of tasks ahead of them.  After all, due to climate change our planet may be uninhabitable in just a few decades.  Are we going to fix that?  Absolutely not, because most of us will be dead and gone before things get as drastic as they're going to get.  We'll be like a man who sets fire to a building and then runs away, leaving others to put out the fire and clean up the mess that he caused.

Look around at the young people in your life--family, friends, acquaintances, strangers--and ask yourself how you can contribute to their lives.  How can you help to strengthen them to meet the challenges that we've caused and that they will face?  How will you help them to face those challenges?  The world is going to be theirs very, very soon, and it's up to us to help to make sure that it's a world that they can live in, happily and joyfully and lovingly.

Re-Invention

I'm about to have to re-invent myself.  My wife and I are going to move, for a variety of reasons, and it looks as if I'm not going to be able to simply start over again doing what I've always done, which has been mostly teaching.  There are quite a few reasons that this is the case, including age, but I don't want to dwell on the reasons.  Rather, I feel that I need to focus on the changes that I can make in positive ways to earn a living doing something different with my time and my life, without resorting to taking just any extremely low-paying job that I can get, which would ensure us that we would eventually run out of money and have to scrape by on whatever we can get for the last years of our lives.

The thought is rather intimidating.  We're moving to an area where we haven't lived before, so we have no contacts and we don't know anyone there.  That means we won't have any local references, and we won't have any friends who can suggest jobs to us because they've heard that someone needs help.  Instead, we're going to have to make our own ways and do our best to find something suitable that we'll enjoy doing and that will help us to pay the bills.  There is a certain amount of risk inherent in a move like this.

And that's okay.  We're both willing to make this move because we both trust that life will take care of us.  We may face some difficult times and situations, but we don't expect to face impossible times and situations.  We're going to give it all that we have and trust that what is meant to be, will be.  And we may both end up finding work that is completely different than what we expected or than what we've done in the past, and that's okay, too.  One or both of us may end up working evenings for a while, and we'll deal with that when and if we have to.  No matter how things go, much of how our lives pan out after we move is up to us--up to the attitudes we have towards the move and whatever new jobs that we have, and up to the dynamics of the place that we move to.

We've done this before, but always with a job to look forward to.  We've always had some sort of income waiting for us when we arrived in a new place.  That won't be the case this time, though.  So we have to do the best we can to make sure that we find something that will help us to pay the rent and pay the bills, and hopefully put something away for retirement.

Our option, of course, is to stay where we are and continue doing what we've been doing for several years, even though there are several very strong reasons for moving.  When all is said and done, the reasons for moving outweigh the reasons for staying, so if we were to stay here, we would be doing so only because we hesitate to take a risk that we're sure will be worthwhile.  We don't want to stay where we are simply because we're afraid to take risks.  We know what the desired course of action is, and we're going to take it no matter how difficult or frightening it may seem.

Much of our decision to do this results from our constant decision to trust life, and to live our lives as fully as we can.  There are some important things missing from our lives where we live right now, and it seems quite obvious that something is missing.  We want to take the chance that finding another place to live will help us with those things, and we've put a lot of thought into where we might go that will help this to happen.  We know that if we stay where we are we'd be simply treading water when we'd prefer to be swimming--so hopefully we're heading to a swimming hole where we can move forward.

Taking such risks is not for everyone, and there's a part of me that would love to have been a person who lived in one place his whole life, but that boat has long since sailed.  We're doing what we think is the best for us right now, and we're not allowing the perceived risks to keep us from making a change that we think will be very positive.  And even though the change means that I'm probably going to have to re-invent myself and what I do to make a living, I'm looking forward to making the changes and seeing what kinds of new things life has to offer us.

Living Fully in a Divided World

We all see it pretty constantly:  the people in the world we live in are becoming more and more divided, more and more willing to point fingers and one another and blame each other for everything from economic problems to moral decay to political disasters.  It's becoming increasingly difficult for us to keep ourselves separate from the conflicts that arise day in and day out, often in our own lives, but especially on social media, where we do a whole lot of our arguing and finger-pointing and name-calling these days.

So how do we live fully and happily in a world full of conflict?  When one friend or family member is calling another one names because of their political beliefs, how do we respond?  Do we become part of the conflict ourselves?  Or are there other strategies that we can employ?

If we want to keep our peace and not get completely stressed out every day, it's important that we keep our minds on what really matters--namely, the planet we live on and all that lives here.  If we're to truly contribute in positive ways to this world, then we need to make sure that we're not adding negative energy to a situation.  It's difficult to watch one person criticize or insult another, and it's even more difficult sometimes to not add fuel to the fire by adding our own insults to the mix.  But conflict feeds upon itself, and the more people it can draw into itself, the stronger it becomes.  We can't be drawn into it, for if we allow ourselves to be pulled in, we lose our peace and we lose our balance--and the deeper we're drawn in, the less balance we have.

I've developed a technique of questioning.  If I hear someone insult another, or if I see an insulting post online, I try to say something like, "I don't understand why you're insulting this other person.  What purpose do you want to serve by doing so?"  Or, "Why do you resort to name-calling?  I don't see how it helps anything."  When I do this, I do so in the hopes of defusing, not of putting anyone down.  (I do realize, though, that some people will even find sentences like these to be insulting, but then we're dealing with pretty severe personal issues, it seems.)  When most people are asked to justify their insults and realize that they're really not able to do so, they'll back off and avoid making things worse.  If nothing else, perhaps I can make them think twice the next time that they're tempted to call someone else a name, trying to incite conflict.

I also try to keep my statements as objective as possible.  When someone posts a lie about someone else (especially in the form of stupid memes), I try to respond with something like, "This is completely untrue," and I include a link to a page that explains the truth of the matter (it takes usually about 30 seconds to find one).  If it's something egregious or hate-filled, I might follow up with a comment like, "You do realize, of course, that this is the sort of thing that's contributing to the division in our country, and not the unity."  I'll admit, usually people don't like hearing something like that, and they often get quite defensive in response.  And almost never do they take the post down.

But one thing that's important to keep in mind is that we should be in this sort of thing for the long haul.  If I do point out a lie and the other person attacks me, I remind myself that that's to be expected sometimes, and at least I've done what I can to point out a wrong.  What we have to do is let go of any short-term expectations--no one is going to take down a post and apologize for it when we point out that it's a lie or that it's divisive.  But hopefully they'll start thinking about whether or not the next thing they post is true or not, and perhaps they'll abstain from spreading lies in the future.

I can only live my life fully if I don't always stay silent when I see a wrong.  You see, staying silent often makes me complicit in the wrong, depending on what it is.  Sometimes we see things that are wrong that are not a huge deal.  If I see someone roll through a stop sign on an empty street, I'm not going to immediately call the police and report them.  But if there are children present and the same thing happens, I'll be sure to call them.  If someone posts a meme saying that all people from Indiana are stupid, I'm not going to say anything because it's probably just a joke, no matter how dumb it may be.  But if I see a meme that's trying to be fear-mongering, then I'm going to say something.  Memes and stories claiming that vaccines cause autism are simply spreading fear, and the claim was long ago debunked--spreading that particular lie now is simply irresponsible.  Now, if you have documentation of the truth of the matter and you share that, too, then I'll give the benefit of the doubt.

We're never all going to believe the same things; we're not going to belong to the same political parties; we're not going to agree on directions our community, city, state, or nation should take.  And when we're surrounded by conflict, it can be difficult to feel our own sense of balance, to keep peace of mind amid the turmoil.  It's important that we come up with strategies for dealing with people who are trying to further conflict, and that we stick to those strategies.  Then we'll know two things:  first, we've done what we can to be productive in a negative situation, and second, we've planted a seed while keeping ourselves out of the fray.  Both of these things are very important to all of us.  We don't need more people in the fights--let them not be us.

Modern Obstacles to Living Life Fully: The Phone

There are many people who get quite upset when someone tells them that they shouldn't be on their cell phones or their computers so much.  In a way, I understand them--we really shouldn't tell others what they should and shouldn't do with their lives (and I just did what I said we shouldn't do simply to make the point of how easy it is to do so).  We get defensive when someone else tells us that we're doing something wrong and that we need to change.

I think that rather than telling people what to do or not to do, we should make it our goal to try to educate them about what may happen if they don't change things up.  We need to educate others on what they're choosing to miss out on if they continue on their present course.

I truly dislike cell phones and the ways that they control people.  I can't get too upset with the people who are addicted to them because they're simply responding to an incredible amount of advertising and marketing designed to manipulate them into thinking that these phones are actually necessary  The marketers also tell them that they'll be happier people the more "connected" they become via social media and other apps that are designed more to set the hooks more deeply into them than they're designed to help them to have happy lives.

After all, the bottom line is this:  The more addicted you become to your phone, the more money a lot of people make off of you.  But most of us look at our addictions only as far as they're fulfilling a need or a want.  We don't want to think that the alcohol industry wants us to be addicted to alcohol so that they'll have a steady stream of income from us; the candy industry wants us to be addicted to their candy so that they'll be getting our money regularly; and the phone and app makers and the service providers want us to be addicted to our phones because they make lots of money because of our devotion to paying for their devices and services.  But all we look at is:  I want to check my email when I want, I want to talk on the phone when I want, or I want to take selfies when I want.

Remember when many people finally bought a cell phone, but only with the promise that it was "only for emergencies"?

What I try to get people to realize, though, is what they miss from life when they're constantly on their phones.  When I walk into my classes at the university these days, they're pretty much always quiet--at least nine of ten of the students are focused on their screens, and the other few students are sitting quietly waiting for class to start, unable to talk to their neighbors who are focused on their screens.  When I was a student, I met more people before classes than I did in almost any other situation.  I would talk to the person sitting next to me, and they would actually talk, also.  If you liked the person you sat next to, it was worth it getting to class five or ten minutes early to have a longer chat, or to suggest a cup of coffee or something after class.  That doesn't happen any more.  It's really kind of spooky and disconcerting to walk into classrooms that have 30 people sitting in them, but that are dead quiet.  So many opportunities for knowing other human beings are being lost, every single day because we're so attached to our screens.

I also want to teach people just how we lose our ability to focus on the here and now when we're on the phone with someone who's there, not here.  We were once on vacation with a friend of the family, and this person was constantly getting calls from her husband.  Instead of being able to enjoy the beautiful scenery and peacefulness of where we were, she was constantly being pulled from the moment to argue with her husband about something back home, or to tell him where something was, or to have a long discussion about something involving their house.  I really wanted to take her phone from her and throw it into the bay because every time she started arguing with him, we had to be party to the argument, and we lost the beauty of the present moment, also.  To this day I still don't understand why she refused to turn her phone off, even though several times she said she should do just that.

"You should," both my wife and I agreed with her.  She never did.

What always shocks me, though, is just how much people are paying for these things.  In addition to the outrageous price for the phone itself--which most people replace every two or three years, at least--there's the monthly fees for the phone service, for the GPS, for the music service, or for the myriad of other services that simply nickel-and-dime people to death.  Many people are paying over $200 a month simply for phone services, and that's a huge amount of money--$2400 a year, or enough for a new car every eight or nine years.

I don't want to get too far into the "when I was a kid" approach to looking at life, but here goes:  When I was a kid, we had one phone, it stayed at home, and we paid $15-20 a month for the service.

And we were fine.  In many ways we could argue that we were actually better off because we had fewer addictions than our populace faces today.

Could you leave your phone at home for a day without pining for it and wishing you had it with you every moment?  Why don't you try it?  See how many more birds you hear singing; find out how many more people can you look in the eye and greet warmly; learn how many flowers you walk by each day without noticing them.  Feel the breeze and listen to it in your ears instead of listening to the same songs over and over again on Pandora.  Stay focused on the present moment where you are right now instead of talking so much to people who are in other places.  Revel in the ability to sit down and not feel pressure to call or text someone while you have a few "free" moments (which aren't free any more once you decide to use them texting).  Watch the clouds roll by or roll in; listen to the kids playing; hear laughter that isn't coming to you through a speaker.

If we truly want to live life fully, we have to be multi-dimensional.  We must be aware of the world around us and the needs of the people we're with.  Phones make us uni-dimensional, and they keep us focused on things that aren't truly a part of the reality in which we find ourselves (and no, I don't buy the argument that things that come over the phone are part of our reality because they're coming over the phone, for valid reasons that I'll address later).  Our connections to our phones are carefully crafted addictions that we either can't or won't recognize as such, and we're paying dearly for our addiction, both in cash and in the loss of our connection to the world to which we belong.

Achievement

I used to believe that achievement meant winning, being the best, coming in before everyone else.  Achievement was gaining recognition, being praised, being noticed by other people.  Gradually, though, I've realized that that way of looking at achievement was more harmful to me than helpful--if I expected recognition for everything I achieved, I was bound to spend most of my life being disappointed, for people aren't going to give me recognition just because I think they should or hope they will.  I needed to start basing my actions on what I wanted to accomplish and what would help others--some of my greatest achievements have been some of the smallest, for they've been the most helpful to others.

I'll never win an Olympic medal or be the governor of a state or the president of a country, but it's important for me to realize that those areas aren't where my gifts lie.  If I'm to achieve what's most important--whatever it is that will make me a better, kinder, more compassionate human being--then I need to be true to my gifts.  I need to search out areas of achievement that will help me to grow, and most of all help me to help others to grow. Once I do anything solely for potential recognition, I've achieved something for a poor motive, and that achievement is worse than worthless.

The gifted athletes or actors or politicians who focus on self may have an extensive list of achievements to show for their efforts, but of what value are they if they're not helping others with their gifts?  My goal is to make my achievements helpful, useful.

Of course, we can't do everything that we do just for others--sometimes we do something that can make us proud.  We run the 10k race a little bit faster than before, or we get a short article published, or we win an award at work or at school. Those are all great achievements, and most of us are able to avoid letting such achievements go to our heads and make us forget others.  But we must focus on how such achievements add to our confidence or self-esteem so that the next time we're in a situation that demands a certain level of confidence, that prize that we won becomes much more valuable because its effects make us much more effective in the current situation.

My greatest achievements shall never be known, perhaps even to me. Having made someone smile and see the world a bit brighter, having given someone hope for the future, having helped someone see potential inside him or her self that he or she never might have seen otherwise, having helped someone to see just how beautiful he or she really is--these to me are the achievements that most can help this world to be a brighter, more loving place.

Grief

When our spirit tells us it is time to weep, we should weep.  It is part of the ritual, if you will, of putting sadness in perspective and gaining control of the situation. . . . Grief has a purpose.  Grieving does not mean you are weak  It is the first step toward regaining balance and strength.  Grieving is part of the tempering process.   -Joseph M. Marshall III

We tend to look at grief as a response to losing something or somebody in our lives, especially to death.  And while we like to tell people to take their time and grieve, we also tend to suggest to people who are grieving that it's important to move on with their lives and not let the grief consume them.  As with everything else there must be balance, of course, but coming to terms with grief is something that none of us can understand for others, and it's important that we respect the grief of others and let it fulfill its purpose.

There's a myth in many cultures that says that human beings always have to be "strong," though strong isn't really well defined.  Refusing to grieve and simply moving on with your life when faced with loss is not a productive way of dealing with adversity; nor is it an effective way of achieving balance in our lives.  Allowing ourselves to grieve is truly the only way of moving past difficult losses, and the decision of whether to grieve or not is ours alone.

We grieve when we lose loved ones and acquaintances; we grieve when we lose jobs or even some material objects that have special meaning to us; we grieve when we graduate from school and "lose" the routines that have become so normal to us.  If we don't grieve, these things can stick with us for a very long time--and while there's no need to try to repress the memories of them, we do need to make sure that those memories don't bring us down any more, and that they don't ruin what otherwise might be a very positive time in our lives.

We must allow ourselves to grieve, and we must allow others to grieve in their own ways, in their own time.  Moving on with our lives depends upon how we grieve, and it's up to us to make sure we do so fully.


Questions to consider:

Why do so many people seem to be so uncomfortable with grief?

In what ways are you most comfortable grieving?

How do our lives play out if we don't allow ourselves to grieve a significant loss?


(From our new year of daily meditations, in progress now.)

Abundance or lack?

When you have too much month for your paycheck, then
what you need to do is realize that there is abundance all
around you, and focus on the abundance and not your lack
and as night follows day abundance will come to you.
-Sidney Madwed

It took me many, many years to be able to focus on abundance rather than lack, and I can honestly say that I'm still not there yet.  I still fear running out of money and resources; I still fear not having enough food someday and not being able to meet my responsibilities and commitments.  My focus has always been on what I don't have rather than what I have, and now that I'm more often focused on gratitude for what I have, I find that I have more and I don't fear losing it nearly as much.

In my family when I was growing up, the focus was always on lack.  We had little money--sometimes none at all for a month at a time when my father would drink away his paycheck the weekend he received it.  My mother was really good at keeping us fed, so we didn't starve at all, but that was partly because she grew up being poor, also, and she had learned how to stretch food to amazing lengths.  Because of her poverty, though, she focused on what was missing, and she and my father taught us kids to do the same.

The world is full of resources for us, and it's up to us to take advantage of them--nobody's going to fill our baskets for us.  Unfortunately, many of us take a defeatist attitude that says, "I'll never be rich, so I'll never have the good things."  But the truth is that we can have the good things--we have to keep focusing on the abundance around us and figure out ways to tap into it rather than wishing against all hope that we could somehow have just a slice of it.

A lot of it has to do with choices, of course.  I could have a lot more money than I have now if I were to choose to do some work other than teaching, but I love to teach and I'm good at it, so I keep with it.  I do without certain things that I don't really need in order to experience abundance with other things--my wife and I never go to movies in expensive theaters, for example, but with the money we save there, we take nice little weekend trips to nearby areas.  Abundance doesn't mean having it all, but it does mean experiencing a rich and fulfilling life.


-from our new year of Daily Meditations, in progress now.