Acceptance (In Today's World)

Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgement of the facts
of a situation, then deciding what you're going to do about it.
-Kathleen Casey Theisen


I'll be very honest--it's become very difficult to accept the things that are happening in the United States these days.  The masked "law-enforcement" officers, the deportations of people who don't deserve to be deported, the pardoning of scores of guilty people who were given fair trials--the list goes on and on, and it's getting worse and worse.  And the unjustified murder of an unarmed woman in Minnesota seems to be the next step in the escalation of actions and policies designed to sow chaos and disorder, to pit people against each other on political and ideological bases, and to keep people from trusting anyone, anywhere.

But accept these things we must, because until we acknowledge the truth that things are not going to go back to how they used to be, we'll never be able to move forward, away from the awful things that are going on.

No matter how much we don't want to admit it, the current situations in this world make it impossible to go back to any sort of "good old days."  We may want to say things like "There's no way that I'll accept a killing in Minnesota," but when one says such a thing, then one is talking about denial, not ethics or morals.  If anything is going to change in this world, then the current facts must be accepted as a first step towards change.  Things are as they are, and pretending they aren't happening is to sabotage any chance for healthy change.

Accepting the fact that a woman was killed in her car while doing nothing wrong does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that you somehow condone the action.  It does not mean that you support the people who did it.  It doesn't mean that you don't care about it.  It simply means that you're willing to say "Yes, this did happen."  "Yes, I live in a country in which a man wearing a uniform is allowed to kill anyone he wants without facing any repercussions so far, and who is actually defended by many people in positions of power."

And acknowledging that fact along with all the other horrible things going on means that we're aware of them, and that we know that change has to come from the place we're at, not from the place we wish we were.  Alcoholics can't really start to overcome their alcoholism until they accept the fact that they're alcoholics.  Until I accept the fact that the kitchen faucet is broken, I can't fix it.  And when I do work on it, I undertake the job knowing that it's broken, not hoping that it's going to miraculously fix itself and be as good as it was last year at this time.

Acceptance is often very difficult.  Right now, it's very hard for me to accept that the country I've lived in for many decades is no longer the same country as it was when I was a kid--opportunities for everyone have dried up as the wealth disparities grow more and more pronounced, and the spending power of the money we earn shrinks regularly.  The amount of debt that young people have to rack up in order to get a college education cripples them, and simply sabotages their futures.  The young people I know today simply don't have the opportunities ahead of them that they would have had at the same age forty years ago.  These are simple facts, and I can't ignore them or deny their importance.

But I still hope for change.  I hope for improvement.  I know that it can't come from me, for I have no real influence on any policies or policy makers, but I accept the fact that I can't affect things directly, and I still try to affect things indirectly as much as I can.  I've taught for almost forty years because I've wanted to do all I can to help young people to know things that would help them in life, and I can keep on teaching, hoping to help people to see directions they can go and methods they can use to bring about change themselves.  I accept my limitations because I know that I can still accomplish something, but I don't waste my time or energy doing things that won't have any effect at all.

Acceptance is not submission.  Acceptance is strength, acceptance is clear-headedness, and acceptance is awareness.  Acceptance is one of the first things that has to happen before any change can be implemented, and it's one of the most important elements of our lives.

Preparing for a New Year (In Today's World)

It depends on us. . . Another year lies before us like an unwritten page,
an unspent coin, an unwalked road.  How the pages will read,
what treasures will be gained in exchange for time,
or what we find along the way, will largely depend on us.   -Esther Baldwin York


It's almost time to welcome a new year into our lives.  Although the measurement of years is a completely artificial way of dealing with the concept of time, most of us subscribe to it to one extent or another, so starting a new year in our lives does matter to most of us.  We see the "new start" as a fresh opportunity for change, for beginning new projects, for repairing relationships, for learning new skills, for getting in shape. . . the list is very, very long, obviously.

From what I've been hearing and reading over the last year, though, it seems like many people are not seeing the "opportunity" part of the new year, especially people who have lost jobs or who are making much less money than they made last year, or are spending so much more on basic living expenses that they don't see any way possible for them to take on anything new.  And all of the people who are going to have to spend much more money every month for health insurance are facing a year when they'll probably be struggling to keep their heads above water, much less thrive or be able to fill their new year with new goals or projects.

A mother who's now going to have to pay much more for insurance this coming year won't have the income necessary to take the college courses she needs in order to advance in her job or to change jobs.  A family that has seen its work diminish severely due to economic factors such as tariffs, which are making the less wealthy people suffer more than anyone else, won't be able to afford to take that vacation they've been planning on, and they won't be able to afford the extra classes that their son or daughter needs.  Families that are paying much more for utilities, rent, or mortgages will be stuck just trying to get by.

Of course, the most important element of getting ready for the new year is accepting the reality it currently presents, the possibilities and limitations, for they're real for most of us.  Accepting a limitation does NOT mean that we think we can't do anything to get over it, of course, but unless we accept it for what it is currently, we simply won't be able to try to overcome it.  Acceptance means that we know what our current situation is, and that our plans fit realistically into the reality we're living.  If my disposable income is $500 a month, then I probably shouldn't be planning a summer in France.

Personally, my wife and I see many such limitations in our future, as we've recently retired and we'll be living on that famous "fixed income" that definitely limits our possibilities.  The first thing we did in order to retire was to move to a country that's much less expensive than the States, because we want our money to stretch as far as possible while we still try to maintain a basic quality of life.  We're not people who have inherited lots of money or who have a home that's completely paid off, so the income we get will be it.  The good side is that by moving, we were actually able to retire--had we stayed in the States, we would have had to keep working at least another ten years, probably.  So our planning for the next year is rather simple--we'll take many day trips to explore our new surroundings, but we won't be planning any extensive vacations for the year.  For us, this will be a year of settling in and getting used to life in a new country and to new ways of life.

What will your new year look like?  Will this be a year of being careful with money?  If so, how can you still maintain a decent quality of life while spending less?  Does this mean fewer meals out, fewer trips, and fewer luxuries?  Perhaps this can be a year of focusing on improving family relationships or friendships.  Maybe it's a year to spend at home, strengthening your home life.  Many people find time that they spend at home to be beneficial because they can read more and do more things with their families.  Perhaps a game night each week can strengthen ties better than a meal in a restaurant can.

Or will your financial situation not change significantly, so you can continue to do the things that you like to do, that make life more interesting and enjoyable?  You can still look for ways to strengthen relationships that you already have, to improve the home you live in, to contribute to the neighborhood you live in.  Maybe it's time to buy a few books on something that fascinates you, and learn more about it.

Or will you be doing even better financially, so you can do some things that you've dreamed of doing for a long time?  Then congratulations, and have fun!  Just try to keep in mind that those people who use at least some of their money to help others tend to be happier and feel a stronger sense of purpose and fulfillment.  Giving back to the world is one of those things that everyone sees in different ways, but that tend to make people happier and more emotionally well-balanced.

Your new year is coming up, or has already started, depending on when you're reading this.  Right now, you're just thinking of what's coming and how you're going to deal with it all.  I would say that Esther is right--what this year becomes definitely will be affected by outside circumstances, but will mostly depend on us and how we approach the year.  Once we accept where we are and what we have and what we don't have, we can get to work trying to improve things, if necessary, or to maintain things that should be maintained.  My main hope is that you're able to make your coming year a wonderful year indeed, in both your own life and in the lives of the people with whom you associate in one way or another.  What we make of 2026 is up to us, isn't it?

 

Sharing Compassion (in Today's World)

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening
our circle of compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
-Albert Einstein


In this age of division, is it possible that compassion is our key to somehow finding unity once more?  Some of our leaders want us to think that in order to end division, we must "defeat" those who disagree with us.  Others feel that the key to unity is finding common ground even among our division and disagreement, to acknowledge the rights that others have to think and feel as they do, to accept them and their thoughts, and to work together even when we disagree on some points.

Compassion is "feeling with" someone, trying to understand their actions and thoughts and motivations.  It's rather easy to feel compassion for someone who obviously deserves it--the person who's been injured, the friend who has lost their home, the someone who has been abused.  But when we can't easily see the actual sadness, when we don't know the sources of a person's problems, it can be much more difficult.  That person who is against what I'm for more than likely has had some very poor teachers in their life, people who taught them to hate and to resent rather than to love and respect.  And we don't know what led them to actually believe this teacher, to follow their advice.  But it's very possible that even though this person is doing bad things, they're in great pain themselves, and it may be that pain that's leading them to hate, to judge, to harm others.

Since we can never really know what's going on in another's life, it seems that the most effective approach we can take is to make compassion our default response.  That doesn't mean that we should accept and approve of all that other people do, but if we can act around them with compassion, then we can understand that their harmful actions may be the result of great pain in their lives, rather than character flaws or simply being "wrong" or "stupid."

Many people have received poor educations, and it would be unfair of us to judge their words or actions by the same standards that we would expect from someone who's been educated deeply and broadly.  Some people are so afraid of everything that they base their prejudices and biases on their fear, and not on anything concrete or even logical.  And most of them never realize just how much power they give to their own fears.

In a world in which it seems like compassion is dying, just who's going to keep it alive?  Well, I can, and you can.  We're not obligated to do so, of course, but compassion sure seems important enough to me that I want to do all that I can to make sure that it doesn't disappear completely from humanity.  I must foster it, maintain it, share it freely--even with those who don't "seem" to deserve it, and let it be a guiding force in my own life if I'm ever going to have the chance to call myself a "compassionate person."  And on the day that I die, that's a term that I hope more than one person uses to describe who I was when I was here.

Battling Ignorance (in Today's World)

There is no evil in the universe which is not the result
of ignorance, and which would not, if we were ready
and willing to learn its lesson, lead us to a higher wisdom,
and then vanish away.   -James Allen


One of the most incredible defining features of our current world is the extreme amount of ignorance to be found among people of all social groups, of all economic groups, of all nationalities.  Unfortunately, ignorance has become a tool for many of the world's politicians, just as poverty has always been a tool.  The politicians understand that if the population is literate, then voters will be able to recognize the lies that politicians regularly use to get elected, and then they more than likely wouldn't vote for the candidate come election time.  The current situation in the United States is due to this dynamic--the quality of education in the States has been declining steadily over the past four decades or so, and as a result, we have many millions of people who are willing to accept lies as truth, and to repeat those lies to others, presenting them as "facts."  They do no research on their own to find out if something is true or not, because it's easier just to believe the people who are lying to them.  Something like Fox News isn't an accident--it's a carefully crafted tool designed to make people think they know facts that support one political party, while simultaneously getting them to hate and fear the "opposition," or those who don't agree with them politically.

So what do we do about this?  In these days when ignorance not only has been institutionalized but also is celebrated, what can we do?  Of course, as with all else we have to start with ourselves if we want to be making our lives all they can be.  We need to educate ourselves, first of all, on the issues that truly matter to us.  We obviously don't need to be experts on virtually everything, but we do need to be able to back ourselves up if we're going to be discussing important issues.  And we need to make sure that our sources of information aren't solely those that we've chosen because we like what they say.  We need to listen even to people with whom we disagree--at least, listen to them until their arguments are proven to be fallacious.  Part of our research can be simply to read a certain amount of news each day, paying close attention to the sources of any information we may use to back up our own arguments.  It's also important that we actually listen to opposing arguments, partly out of respect, and partially to understand exactly what the other person is trying to say.

I will always be ignorant of certain subjects.  I'm not an economist, and I never shall be--but there are plenty of people who are experts in that field, and if I find some that are trustworthy, then I can have a valid opinion on the directions a national economy should go, based on what I've learned from their expertise.  I don't have to have a degree in economics to have a solid understanding of what's going on in the world economically.

We don't want to be ignorant--but we have to make an effort to learn if we're going to be able to say that we're truly not ignorant.  And each of us always will be ignorant of certain things--after all, ignorance is simply not knowing something, isn't it?  The problem that we're facing is that ignorant people are claiming to know things that they truly don't know, and to introduce laws that support their biases and prejudices, rather than make life better for everyone.  And that kind of ignorance is harming many, over and over again.  This is a struggle that has to start by looking at oneself and making sure that we're doing all we can to make sure we're not part of the problem.

Gentleness--Living in Today's World

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

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

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

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


Gentleness

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


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

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.

What Is Good?--A Paragraph a Day

I often wonder what's truly good and what isn't.  There really is no clear answer, of course, because so many things that seem to be bad end up being the best things for us, and so many things that seem to be good turn out to be awful in the long run.  So I've stopped taking things at their surface--I don't necessarily believe that something that looks good to me truly IS good, because I really don't know.  I may win a million dollars in a lottery and end up being miserable; I may lose a job and end up finding something much better in all ways.  I think that it's far too easy to judge things on first impressions, and that true goodness rarely shows itself immediately.  We have to understand things on a much deeper level before we can truly know whether something is good or bad (with a few exceptions, of course).  I'm sure that most of us have had the experience of watching someone do something very good, only to find out later that they were doing it for selfish reasons and that the action wasn't at all good after all.  I think that the only thing that I can do with any surety is to make sure that my own actions come from that place inside of me that wants to do good, for only I know my true intentions.  And any goodness that I can put into the world is going to add to the overall goodness--and that can't be a bad thing, can it?

A Generous Day--A Paragraph a Day

I'd like this day of mine to be a generous one.  When the day is over some hours from now, I'd like to look back on it and be able to think about times when I was generous to someone else.  Of course, if that's how I want the day to end, then it's important that I make a conscious effort to be generous for the next fourteen hours or so, isn't it?  I'm going to have a lot of opportunities to be generous, by sharing whatever I have, by sharing compliments and encouragement, even possibly by overlooking some fault or mistake of another person and fixing a problem myself.  At my school, sometimes being generous concerns picking up some trash in the cafeteria so that the janitor doesn't have to do so, and I make his job just a bit easier.  Of course, if I do so, I don't want to tell him that I did, for then my action is less about being generous and more about wanting thanks for my "generous" action.  I can be generous with my time by listening to someone who seems to need to talk--even if I had something to say that I thought was very important.  When all is said and done, of course, my listening is almost always more generous than my talking.  So can I do it?  Can I make this a generous day?  I certainly hope so, and now that I'm thinking about it, perhaps it will be easier for me to do so.  Wish me luck!

Letting the World Go On--A Paragraph a Day

Does it ever seem that the world is simply too overwhelming for us?  Does it seem that so many terrible things happen that it's not possible to stay happy if we really do feel compassion for the people to whom those terrible things are happening?  Does it seem unfair that we're sitting warm and comfortable in our homes while so many people are living through war and extreme poverty and crime and homelessness and goodness knows what else?  Sometimes it seems like that to me, and at those times I have to remember that my world is my world, and there's much to be grateful for here.  I don't have any influence at all on other people in other parts of the world, other than the amount that I donate each month to a particular charity (our personal charity is Doctors without Borders, though there are many others who do just as much good, if not more).  And I remind myself that if I were in a terrible situation, I wouldn't wish it upon anyone else, so those people who are living in better conditions could do me the best favor of all by truly appreciating their blessings while they have them.  The world will go on, and terrible things will continue to happen--and I'm not a terrible person for appreciating the food that I have, the shelter that I have, the blessings that I have.  We can't all be everywhere, saving everyone from adversity, but we can develop a sincere appreciation for the gifts that we have, for they truly are blessings, especially in light of the adversity that so many others are facing every day that we live.

My Freedoms--A Paragraph a Day

This year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian civil rights activist who's in an Iranian prison, and who will stay there for the foreseeable future.  She's an incredibly courageous woman who isn't afraid to speak out against the current "leaders" of the country, no matter the personal danger to herself.  Her case and her courage make me think about the freedoms that I have in my day-to-day life, the choices that I'm able to make every single day without fear of being beaten and/or arrested for wearing the wrong clothes or not covering my hair or saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.  The freedoms that I have are many, no matter what limitations I also face, and it's important that I not just appreciate them, but that I take advantage of them to do things that can make a difference in this world.  In my case, I try to make the differences as a teacher and as a writer, and in both of those fields I know that I enjoy more freedoms than most people in the world enjoy, and I try to make those freedoms count in my efforts to pass on knowledge of the topics that I've studied deeply, and about which I've learned a lot myself.  If I don't take advantage of those freedoms, then I feel that I'm doing a great disservice to wonderfully courageous human beings like Narges Mohammadi.  I can't go over to Iran and get her and others out of prison or change their life situations to make their lives better, but I can do my best to take advantage of the freedoms that I do have to try to make this world a better place, even in the slightest of ways.

Other People's Judgment--A Paragraph a Day

It always amazes me just how strongly we find other people's judgment to be important.  We worry about what other people think about our hair, our clothing, our cars, our homes, our sexuality, our relationships, our jobs, our favorite songs or movies. . . and on and on and on.  I have to wonder what life would be like if none of us worried about things like that, if we just lived our lives in the ways we see to be best and right for us, and didn't concern ourselves with the judgment of others.  Of course, I'm not talking about having everyone feel free to murder others or harm them in any way, but about the stress we cause ourselves by worrying about what other people think.  My boss coming over for dinner isn't a cause of stress--my worries about what he's going to think about my home and family cause that stress.  And yes, there are areas of out lives in which other people's judgment can cause us to lose a job or to have a manuscript rejected or to decide not to date us or marry us, but for the most part, other people's judgment, I think, should stay with those other people.  I really shouldn't allow its shadow to darken my life when there's so much sunshine to experience over here.

More thoughts and ideas on judgment

Things Don't Always Go Our Way--A Paragraph a Day

It might be nice if things went the ways that we want them to go much more often than they do, wouldn't it?  This is what we tend to think because if things went the ways we wanted them to, then we'd face much less stress when we had to deal with things that run counter to our wishes or our expectations.  After all, if things aren't going well at work, I may have to deal with this fact by trying to change those things, working with them and becoming unhappy at my job, or even leaving the job for something else.  If things change in ways that force us to compromise our ideals or principles, for example, leaving a job may become absolutely necessary for our peace of mind.  But most things aren't that important.  Many things are simply annoyances or inconveniences, and it might do us well to practice the art of accepting things that may annoy us or frustrate us, and learn to live with a new reality that might not have been one of our choice, but that most certainly is a new reality.  This acceptance will allow us to look at the change as something that simply is, and if we want to maintain our peace of mind and peace of heart, then the best thing that we can do is accept it and move on with the task of making ourselves the best we can be.  I imagine that many, many people have been upset at societal changes--women getting the vote, slaves being freed, civil rights being recognized, and on and on and on--but those people who have thrived have been those who understood that things aren't always going to go the ways they want, so it's time to accept things as they are and work within the new reality.  And personally, I hope always to be a person who thrives rather than one who holds on to resentment and refusal to change.

Finally Finishing--A Paragraph a Day

What a relief it is to finally finish a job that I've been working on a while.  After a leaking dishwasher ruined our floor, I've spent the last couple of weeks tearing out an old floor (which meant taking off the molding and door frames, of course), cleaning up the mold and glue, shopping for new flooring and underlayment, and actually putting in the floor and installing a new dishwasher.  It's been a lot of work, but what a great feeling it is to be able to say, "It's done."  If there's any sort of argument for perseverance that's super strong, it's the fact that the feeling we get when we finish something that's been difficult is a truly beautiful feeling, one of accomplishment and pride and all sort of other stuff mixed together.  When I rode my bike 400 miles in June, the feeling that I had when I rode into the town that was my final destination was incredible.  And the feeling happened only because I persevered and made it all the way--it couldn't have happened any other way.  I know quite a few people who almost never feel that way because they so often give up before they finish what they started, and I feel very bad for them.  There's a chance that they're building habits that will never allow them to actually finish something that's a long-term project, so there's a chance that they'll never experience the feeling of having persevered and accomplished something that they set their minds to.  Personally, I try to remind myself of the value of perseverance as much as I can because I definitely want to keep feeling that feeling.

Encouragement Is So Simple--A Paragraph a Day

I find it fascinating just how rare encouragement seems to be these days.  It's something that's so incredibly simple to give, yet relatively rare when we compare it to things like criticism and sarcasm.  So many people that I see in the world want to be critics or comedians, telling other people the flaws they see or deciding to make a joke about something rather than giving positive feedback that can give the other person strength and optimism.  I've seen far too many people, young and old, share an achievement with someone else only to hear something like, "Don't give up your day job," a response that's sure to discourage rather than encourage.  And even when someone follows up a response like that with "I'm just kidding," it doesn't really matter--the damage has been done.  First responses are incredibly important to us, and when we try to be funny or harsh rather than encouraging, we've lost a great opportunity to help out another person with words that are free and easy to say, choosing instead to focus on ourselves and our opinions.  Of course, encouragement must be sincere and we shouldn't lie to someone who has brought us something awful and tell them it's good, but we can still encourage the effort involved.  In my life, relatively few people actively encouraged me, and I know that those people who did live on in my heart as very dear people, indeed.

Summer Break--A Paragraph a Day

When I was younger, it was easy to imagine that my teachers had a nice vacation every summer.  After all, it's a long time off, isn't it?  It's more than eight weeks straight, and most people are lucky to get a couple of weeks in a row.  Now that I'm a teacher, though, I understand just how necessary those breaks are, both for teachers and for students.  Learning takes a lot of work, and people--especially young people--get extremely burned out after eight or nine months of classes.  Right now, for example, we have a few weeks left of class and my students are having a hard time sticking with it.  My colleagues are all walking around exhausted, even though the year isn't quite over yet.  It makes it very clear to me just how important rest is in our lives--without it, we can pretty much never work to our full potential, and achieve the things that we need to achieve.  Rest is part of an important part of the balance between achieving and reinvigorating ourselves, and we need to make it part of who we are.  I have summer break coming up, and the most important part of it for me is using it to rejuvenate, to help myself to be a more effective teacher whenever I'm in the classroom.  I know what it's like to burn out, which is going to happen when we don't make sure that we rest, and I do everything I can to keep burnout at bay.  If we don't rest, we become less effective and less happy with who we are, so it's important that we be sure that we do rest when we have the chance to do so.

Naps--A Paragraph a Day

I think that I'm kind of addicted to naps.  I don't take a whole lot of them, which I find to be a shame, actually, but they are one of the most important parts of my life.  I love laying down (or even just reclining) with the intent of sleeping for a little bit, closing my eyes and letting the world slip away for a few minutes.  I almost never sleep more than ten or fifteen minutes, but my naps add a wonderful element to my life.  They're easily one of my favorite things, as they help me to recharge in reinvigorate so that I can face the tasks I have to accomplish with more energy and a clearer mind.  As always, I find it wonderful that one of my favorite things in the world doesn't cost me a cent--it consists of simply closing my eyes and relaxing and letting sleep take over for a few minutes.  So much of life is like that--the truly important things, the truly wonderful things, generally don't cost us anything at all except a little time and perhaps a little effort.  When we grow to love the simple aspects of life that feel so amazing and that help us so much, then we can live our lives as grateful people who know the value of those simple things, and who are willing and able to appreciate them and recognize the value that they bring to our lives.

A Day of Rest--A Paragraph a Day

I really wanted to go for a run or a bike ride today.  It was a beautiful afternoon when I finished work, and I could just imagine how nice it would have been to go out into the day and enjoy the weather and the warmth and the breeze.  Alas, it wasn't meant to be--my body was telling me that it was a rest day, a day when I should allow my body to recover from the runs and the bike rides of the past few days and weeks, and I've learned over the years to pay attention when it tells me such things so that I don't injure myself by carelessly running when my body was telling me it needed a rest.  So I stayed home and did some other things, and that was fine--our bodies need rest, especially when we use them regularly, and rest is an important part of any life lived fully.  Resting gives us a chance to reflect and to recover and to even build up some strength so that the next run (more than likely tomorrow afternoon) will feel even better.  Rest helps muscles to recover so that they don't hurt us the next time we run--without rest, we keep working our ways towards depletion, and that's not really a good place to be going.  So I respect the rests and my body's need for them, for I really do want to take care of this body that's been such a great gift to me for a very long time.

Opportunities Abound--A Paragraph a Day

There are many, many problems in this world we live in.  There's violence, hunger, greed, hatred, prejudice, anger, and so many other negative things that we could truly bring ourselves down if we were to think of all the bad all the time.  But that said, we also have to recognize that there are many, many wonderful opportunities, also, especially for those of us who live in countries that tend to be rather wealthy.  My wife and I are going to Germany this week to attend a funeral--something that wouldn't have been at all possible just 100 years ago--or at all affordable even 50 years ago.  We have an opportunity to do something that is very important to us, and we're able to afford it without going broke.  We have opportunities to work, to meet people, to travel, to eat great meals, to have wonderful things in our house like sofas and music and bookcases and books, to go for walks in neighborhoods that are safe, to call family members who live almost two thousand miles away--the list is very long, and it includes so many things that it's hard for us to wrap our minds around just how many opportunities we actually have.  I hope that by the time I leave this planet I'll have taken advantage of as many opportunities as possible, and that I will have squandered as few as possible.  And now that I'm older and (supposedly) wiser, I hope that I'm able to recognize even more of them and take advantage of them.  Perhaps that should be one of our major goals in life--to get good at recognizing legitimate opportunity and making sure that we don't squander it when it shows up.

Isn't It Supposed to Be Spring?--A Paragraph a Day

The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.
The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.
Henry van Dyke

We're about a week into spring now, and it doesn't look a whole lot different outdoors than it did three weeks ago.  I had to scrape ice off of my windshield this morning, and we've had some pretty bitter winds and grey days this past week.  But that's okay.  It's only spring in name so far, and I've learned over time to temper my wants and desires and allow myself to accept things as they are rather than being upset that they aren't as I would prefer them to be.  I'd love to come home from work and be able to go for a nice long bike ride, but that's not in the cards yet.  And that's okay.  We can't expect something major to happen like a change in season just because the calendars that we make say that it's the first day of spring.  If we want to get the most out of our days, we can't spend time and energy wishing the days were different, because they aren't.  The warmer days will be here soon enough, but for now it's important that we just take what we get because there's absolutely no way we can change it.  And once we accept the days for what they are, our own peace of mind grows and our stress levels decrease, both rather significantly.  It's spring in name only right now, and the best we can do is wait for true spring to arrive, and to love the days we get until then, just as they are.

Dinner Time--A Paragraph a Day

Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted--
a paved road or a washing machine?  If you concentrate on finding
what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life
will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.   -Harold Kushner


We're about to eat dinner, and though it seems like a pretty normal thing for the most part, it's something that I'm very grateful for.  I've had times in my life when I didn't have all that much to eat, and I pretty much didn't know where my next meal was coming from or what it might be.  There have been times when I've bought some bread and a block of cheese and lived off of that for several days, simply because that was all I could afford.  Nowadays, food is plentiful, and I don't really have any possibility of not having a meal (though who knows what may happen tomorrow!), but I try to keep in mind just how important it is to be grateful for this fact.  I have enough to eat, and that's more than a whole lot of people on this planet can say--it's estimated that 25,000 people die every day from starvation and causes related to malnourishment, yet I live in a land of plenty and I have the means of making sure that I have all the food I need.  Heck, we even throw some food away sometimes, though we do make a strong effort to avoid doing so.  But when I sit down to dinner, I make an effort always to be thankful for the fact that I have a dinner to sit down to, and I truly believe that that gratitude is one of the things that makes my life richer.