Work or Play?

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Defining "Achievement"

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No More "Should Be's"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are We Mistaken?

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


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

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

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

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

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

Things Get Muddled

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Am I Part of the Cure?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   

We're in This Together

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing's Perfect

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything from Seeds

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

I Who Know Nothing

I would really like to think that I have some wisdom built up, that I have some knowledge that I've been able to gather and store in my mind over the course of my life.  I would love to believe it, but I can't be sure that it's true.  After all, most of what I've learned here on this planet has been what other people have taught me, either directly by telling me or indirectly when I've read their books or watched their films.  And it really is impossible to know for sure whether or not what I've learned from them is accurate or not, whether or not it's relevant to me and my life.

I say this not to be self-deprecating nor to question the intelligence or integrity of other people, but because I have a feeling inside that there's more to life than just the stuff that other people tell me.  There's more to learn on this planet than simply information, for which our brains are well suited.  There are other things that are much more important than knowing dates and facts and figures and amounts, such as understanding our intuition, feeling compassion when others are hurting, understanding how to live in harmony with the planet we inhabit.  It's important to know how to rest so that we're at our full strength as much as possible, and how to deal with things that stress us out so that we don't allow that stress to affect us too strongly.

I don't think that the answers to these questions are to be found in any particular religion, though that seems to be where most people look for them.  But look at what's happened to our major religious figures over the years--they began as teachers, as people who were willing to pass on important lessons and messages, and then other people deified them and started to worship them.  Most of the Christianity of today, for example, doesn't resemble very closely the things that Jesus taught.  The Buddhism that most people practice today is fairly far removed from the lessons of the Buddha because other people learned those lessons and then modified them to fit their own beliefs, ideas, and ideals.  There are three main divisions of Buddhism now, just as there are several divisions of Christianity, and then there are literally hundreds of divisions within those divisions.

So whose teaching is accurate?  And if the version of a religion that we choose isn't accurate, how are we supposed to know that?

If I was a Methodist my whole life long, for example, I would have been taught over and over again that homosexuality is wrong, and that LGBTQ persons weren't allowed to serve as pastors in the church.  That teaching was just reversed, though, which I see as a positive step ("Love everyone" is an important command), but what about the teachings of the last couple of centuries that are now viewed as archaic and out-of-date?

And more importantly, which other teachings of the church will also be found to be "wrong" in the future?  What are we being taught as right, now, that will one day be considered wrong?

This is why I really like the idea of emptying my mind and allowing things simply to be, without imposing my will on it.  My will tends to be a result of my learning and my beliefs.  If I believe that having green hair is wrong, I tend to judge others harshly when I see their green hair.  But my belief is generally an idea that I've adopted as a truth because someone else taught it to me.  The truth of the matter is that green hair is neither right nor wrong--it simply is.  I'd prefer to simply see it and recognize it and let it be, without judging the person who decided to dye their hair.  And then I can move forward with my learning, and the lesson would simply be that "some people dye their hair green."

If I'm not able to accept this fact, then my "learning" that green hair is wrong will affect me in negative ways.  Judging other people because of what I "know" to be true causes stress, and it keeps me from feeling positive about life and living.  I want this person to change the color of their hair, whether I put it into words or not.  And that's just me trying to control a situation that's completely out of my control because I've "learned" that when something is "wrong," it should be fixed.

But it's not my job to fix the world.  Or maybe it is.  But I don't know enough about anything to tell other people how things should be in the world and in their lives.  I don't know enough to impose my will on others because of what I think I know.

There is much to know here on this planet and here in our lives.  But we have to take that "knowledge" with a grain of salt and realize that what we know is simply a result of the efforts of a unique group of teachers, a collection of people that is completely different for me--nobody else has had exactly the same teachers that I've had.  And there's no reason at all for me to think that all of my teachers were completely right about everything that they taught me, so the best thing that I can do, I think, is to understand that everything that I think I "know" just may be wrong, and I need to recognize that fact and not try to impose my knowledge on others.

It's a difficult task to accomplish--especially for someone who has been a teacher for as long as I have--but if I want to be content and happy in life, it seems to be one of the most important tasks that I can undertake.

What was lost

My father recently passed on, and I've been left with a lot of memories that I would rather not have.  To be very honest, his passing wasn't that difficult for me to deal with--we had never had a strong relationship, and he was suffering a great deal, so dying was actually more of a release for him than anything else.  In fact, he was refusing any treatment at the end, so everyone knew he wanted to die.  The sad part is that he died alone in hospice, because there really was no one who felt called to be there with him at the end, not even his wife.  My mother, for her part, is more relieved that he's gone than anything else, as he tended to bully her quite relentlessly during the 60+ years that they were married.

When something like this happens to us, of course, one of the most important things that we can do for ourselves is process what has happened.  We like to know how we feel, and we like to understand just how we're affected by such a loss.  In my case, the last two months have been spent processing the fact that I really didn't feel anything when he died--he simply moved on, and there was no real sense of loss on my part.

Instead, what I've been learning as I've reflected on our relationship and the ways that he acted as a father is that I'm grieving more for the relationship that I never had with him than I am for the loss of the relationship that I did have, or the loss of the person he was.  I'm grieving more for the loss of a childhood that he caused than I am for the loss of someone I loved dearly and will miss dearly.  For the truth of the matter was that he was a mean person who drank an awful lot and who did awful things when he was drunk, and who didn't do very many kind things at all when he wasn't drinking.  He was a person who liked to put other people down, to call his kids offensive names as a "joke," and who spent virtually no time at all trying to help us kids to grow and to learn when we were young and impressionable.  In fact, he seemed to spend as little time as he possibly could with us, passing on the entire burden of raising us to our mother, who really wasn't up to the task of raising three kids on her own.

But there are those people who will say, "Yes, but he was your father, so you have to mourn his loss."  And the simple truth is really no, I don't.  Because in all honesty, it isn't a loss at all.  "Father" is a claim that he could make only biologically, but he really did nothing to earn or to reinforce that title while we were children in his care.  Like my mother, I feel more of a sense of relief than anything else.

What this experience teaches me is something that I've known before, but that I often have difficulties putting into practice.  I've learned very clearly over the last few weeks that it's not up to me to tell someone else how they "should" feel in certain situations.  It's not my place to analyze their situation and figure out what's right and what's wrong for them.  Rather, the best thing that I can do is simply be there for them when and if they need me, without judging their reactions or their actions.  Their lives are theirs to live, not mine, and their feelings are bound to be different than mine because they're more intimately involved with what's going on in their lives.

It would have been nice to have had a father who was loving and caring and supportive, but that's not what I had.  Unfortunately, neither my brother nor my sister were able to rise above their upbringing--both of them dropped out of high school and ended up being severely addicted to drugs and alcohol and dying rather early deaths--but that's another story, I think.  I was for some reason lucky that for some reason I was able to make my own way through life and succeed at accomplishing a few things that I wanted to accomplish.  But the death of my father isn't something that triggers mourning in me, and I honestly can't think of any interactions with him that I'm going to miss.  And that's okay.  Life is what it is, and my life has been what it's been, and my duty is to move on and make the best of what I have in the here and now, and try my best to live fully and do all that I can for others while I'm here.  These are lessons that I've learned in spite of, rather than because of or from, my father.

I still will say, though, in all sincerity, may he rest in peace.  Life had to be very difficult for him, for him to have turned out the way he did.

Moving On

My father's going to die soon.  He's in hospice, and has been for over a week, and the nurses who are working with him constantly say that he may not make it through another night.  They've been saying this for over a week, of course.  The difficult part of this situation for me is watching it and not having too many feelings about it.  After all, my father has always been a mean, abusive alcoholic, and while many people would say, "Yes, but he's still your father," this simple fact of biology can't do anything to change the ways that I think of the man.  The fact of the matter is that I can't remember many times at all when he actually acted as a father.  Instead of encouragement, he gave criticism and condemnation.  Instead of support, he provided neglect.  Instead of closeness and intimacy, he remained constantly aloof.

And of course, the alcoholism exacerbated all of these problems and turned our childhoods into nightmares.  I really don't want to go into the kinds of things that used to happen, but suffice it to say that I often wonder nowadays what my life might have been like if I had grown up with loving, nurturing parents instead of having to find my own ways through life from a very early age.

My goal here isn't to criticize and condemn.  Rather, it's important for me to look at the situation objectively so that I can understand why I have no deep feeling of loss when I think of my father passing on.  When he dies, he'll be gone, and I'll be left with a vast number of memories that aren't pleasant at all, and very few memories that bring forth positive emotions.

And that's okay.  I really don't want to be one of those people who would support someone come hell or high water no matter what kinds of awful things that person does.  I don't want to be a person who speaks at a funeral and tells others that this is a great loss and that he was a great man when the truth was quite different.  We're somehow expected to look only at the positive and forget the negative, and while I'm more than prepared to forgive--and I already have done so--I'm not willing to lie about the person that this man was.  Lying would affect me and my own peace of mind, and it wouldn't help him a bit.

After all, most of my success in life has resulted from me doing my best not to be like him.  He's served as nothing but a negative role model, showing me how not to live my life if I want to be a happy, fulfilled person.  From watching him--and not from him--I've learned how not to treat other people, how not to abuse alcohol, how not to be completely self-centered, how not to insult and belittle others, how not to emotionally harm and manipulate others.  When all is said and done, though, I've learned in spite of him rather than because of him.  Both my brother and sister, on the other hand, followed the path he modeled and became alcoholics and drug addicts themselves, and both of them died rather early deaths.

Trust me, I do feel compassion for the man.  He lived a very unhappy life that was often tinged with what seemed to be desperation.  I feel very sad that now, near the end of his life, he's dying friendless and alone.  We won't be having a funeral because there would be no one to come other than my mother and I.  But my feelings of sympathy can't change anything about the life he led, and it's my sincere hope that by observing the ways he lived and the results of those ways, I may be able to help others to avoid ending their lives in the ways that he's ending his.

Wasting Time

Something that has become much clearer to me over the years is the fact that for most of us, we "waste" very little time.  Unfortunately, I've always been rather harsh on myself for wasting time and not doing anything "productive" when I could have spent the time accomplishing something.  I've come to realize, though, that most of the time that I've "wasted" by playing games or going for long walks or even doing nothing much at all has been time that I wouldn't have been able to do anything, anyway.  My mental state has been such that what I've needed more than anything else is a rest, and by not forcing myself to "accomplish" anything in particular, I've allowed my brain to focus on something other than the incessant need to be productive and to take a much needed break for myself.

Sometimes it's nice to not do anything productive, to just sit and relax or go for a walk or read something good or even just take a nap.  It can be nice to not have any expectations of ourselves, and to not be disappointed in ourselves for not doing something.  Some of my best days have been days when I've purposely planned nothing at all and I've purposely done nothing at all.  Jigsaw puzzles are a great pastime for those kinds of days, or doing something that doesn't take a lot of brainpower or effort, like window shopping or watching something stupid on television, or watching a favorite old movie one more time.

When all is said and done, our desire to accomplish something seems to be a result of the fact that we want to be remembered, and we want to be remembered in positive ways.  We want people to be impressed with things that we've done, and we want them to be impressed with us for having done them.

The great spiritual leaders, though, have recognized something that is a definite truth:  human beings won't be here forever, and even if we feel that what we've done is lasting, it probably really isn't.  The world will go on and on, and the sun will rise and set without our assistance, as the Talmud reminds us.  I've come to believe that the most lasting legacy that we can leave isn't in material goods or possessions of achievements or successes.  Rather, the most lasting legacy is the love that we can share with others, the caring and compassion that our fellow human beings will carry with them after we share it with them.

While it can feel wonderful to achieve and to produce, it's important that we balance our desire to do so with rest and relaxation so that when we do try to achieve, we're well prepared to follow our path on the long haul.  We're not much good if we're exhausted.  And while we're resting and gathering strength, we can focus on things like writing letters and notes to people we care for, giving them encouragement just by letting them know that someone is thinking of them.  While some people are afraid of wasting time by relaxing and doing nothing, it's completely possible that the true waste of time is trying to carry on without having rested and provided ourselves with the strength we need to carry on.

Legacy

I often wonder about the legacy I'll be leaving.  In many ways, I wish my legacy were more expansive--my influence is rather limited, and I'm not quite sure just how the people I've affected even see what I've passed on to them.  When all is said and done, of course, none of that matters--what will matter on the day I die will be how I feel about what I've given to life and the people in it, and what others have gotten from me as a result of my giving.

But I'm a member of my society, and as a society, we really do seem to have stopped paying attention to things like leaving legacies for our young people, doing things that we can offer with pride to them, things that will contribute in positive ways to the world that they live in and will live in after we're gone.  Heck, we're even destroying the planet they need to live on for the rest of their lives and yes, that legacy is ours.  It belongs to those of us who have been around for a long time and who have continued to contribute to the status quo without making any changes in the ways that we do things that will make things better for our young people as they live their lives after we've departed.

Can I solve the climate crisis all by myself?  Of course not.  Can I solve the problems that we in the States have with a consistently growing number of mass shootings, especially in schools?  No.  Can I fix an educational system that is simply broken, and that is not adequately preparing most students for their futures?  Not on my own, I can't.  And even if I were to get 50 or 1,000 people together to work on the problem, we still couldn't fix it without the agreement of the state governments, the local school boards, the citizens of the country, school boards, and so many other groups that the task would probably never be done.

So what does that mean?  Does it mean that I can't leave a positive legacy?  Does it mean that I can't contribute to the world in positive ways?  No, it doesn't.  Because while my options certainly are limited by reality, I still do have options.  There are definitely legacies that I can leave behind on a very small level that may even have a strong ripple effect, helping the legacy to grow even after I'm gone.

I can leave a legacy of encouragement.  The more I encourage other people, especially young people, the more they learn the strength and power of encouragement, and the more likely they are to become encouragers themselves.  I can leave a legacy of hard work by providing a model of hard work that's balanced with rest and that doesn't take over my life and ruin relationships and hobbies.  I can work hard and still enjoy life, and that type of legacy is strong, indeed.

I can leave legacies of fairness, of compassion, of humor, of understanding, of appreciation, of wonder, of acceptance, of fairness--the list seems to be pretty long, doesn't it?  A legacy is what we leave as role models, and what we leave as laws and what we leave as realities.  I may not be able to solve the climate crisis, but I can drive my car less and put myself in situations in which I can walk or bike where I need to go.  I may not be able to solve the problems of violence in our society, but I can do my best to teach others to love one another and to respect one another and to never resort to violence as a way to deal with problems in life.

We're on this planet a short time, and we want to contribute what we can.  Most of us will never contribute in huge ways, affecting millions of people, but we can contribute in small ways that affect relatively few people--and still leave a legacy that is positive and lasting.  We just have to trust that when we do good, on no matter how small a level, we're contributing in the world in ways that will help others and that will make a lasting impression.  The world needs us to do good, and we can make our own lives much more positive when we do our best to leave a legacy that we can be proud of.

Episodes

I really do like New Year's Day.  It just feels like an opportunity for a fresh start, for new ways to look at things and new things to do and to experience.  I know that the difference between December 31 and January 1 is simply a moment, and that as far as the Earth is concerned, there's no such thing as a "new year" when each day just follows the previous day, as has happened for millennia--all the way back to where there was no concept of "day" to be considered.  It was simply the sun coming up once more after an absence, and there was no name to it at all.

I think I like it because I view life most often through the lens of episodes.  Somehow, my life had been extremely episodic--all of my life I've felt a series of endings and beginnings, over and over again.  I finished school and started working; I finished an MA and joined the Army; I worked two years at a school and then moved on to a different school in a different city or state.  Perhaps this has simply been a continuation of my childhood, when our family moved every couple of years because my father, who was in the Navy, got orders to a new post.  So we had to move from San Diego to Norfolk, from Norfolk to Illinois; from San Francisco to San Diego.  My childhood definitely wasn't one of stability; rather, the only constant in my life was change, so to speak, and I think that this reality has extended itself into my life as an adult.

Which would explain why I really like the idea of a new start at the "beginning" of each year.  I like thinking and feeling that I can put certain things behind me for good in the old year, which is now gone forever, and move forward into the new year pursuing new things--new ideas, new experiences, new behaviors.  Perhaps I've felt myself being too impatient with my students--I can make a clean break from that particular behavior and leave it behind me in the year that's now gone, and move into the next year with a new set of behaviors that will serve me and others well.  The last chapter is done, and the new chapter will develop my character even more.  The last episode is finished, and this new episode will give me a chance to follow a completely new plot with new characters and conflicts.

All in all, I believe that life is episodic for us all, but that we don't pay attention because so many of the changes are so subtle.  Sometimes it's hard to notice that changes have even taken place, even when life is moving in new and different directions.  I want to embrace the shift into a new episode full of new characters and new plots.  Some of the plots we need to make an effort to follow, and some of the characters take a lot of work to get to know or like.  For me, I see the new year as a chance to make some subtle changes that will help me to become a new person--kinder and more compassionate and loving and caring.  I'll be the first to admit that I've fallen a bit short in almost every category that I can conceive of, but that's okay--I'm trying my best to improve, and perhaps this next episode will bring me a new character or three to get to know who's going to help me to see things more clearly.  I'll still have some plot threads from previous episodes to resolve, but I'm looking forward to starting anew and learning more, doing more, and being more than I've ever been before.