Maintaining Principles (In Today's World)

It's important that people should know what you stand for.
It's equally important that they know what you won't stand for.
-Mary H. Waldrip


In the world of today, it's pretty easy to get the idea that living by principle is a concept of the past, something that some people used to do, but not so relevant or important today.  After all, we see all over the place the people who have no principles at all to live by, and they're being rewarded over and over again, especially financially.  Lots of people are making lots of money without having to display even the slightest indication of principled living--or who demonstrate principles such as greed, materialism, and even hatred and anger as ways of life, while people who do stick to principles such as honesty and fairness and equality are mocked and even punished for decisions they make to stick to their principles.

It's a sad situation, and one that most certainly is going to leave deep footprints in the future of this world, especially in the United States, where more and more people are less and less interested in holding people accountable for wrongdoing, abuse, violence, bigotry, and many other things that used to be unacceptable to anyone for whom principles were an important part of their lives.

Somebody just attacked a public figure who happens to be Muslim, and a police lieutenant went online and posted a rather despicable "joke" about the incident.  He was immediately placed on leave, and retired the following morning.  He obviously didn't follow principles that have consistently been demanded of persons in law enforcement, who have to deal with people of all backgrounds on a regular basis, and he did pay a rather heavy price for it.  In that sense, we can see that principles are still present in many forms and situations, and that's a good thing.

But go to the Facebook page of the television news program that reported on his retirement and read the comments.  Many of them are horribly negative, but the truth is that the vast majority of the people who commented said basically, "he should be able to say whatever he wants about anything or anybody he wants."  In the comments, you can see a complete lack of principled thinking, of the idea that people should be living up to certain standards, especially if they're public servants.  And most of the people think it's okay for him to do so because they dislike--or even hate--the person who had been attacked.  Their idea of "principles" seems to apply only to people they like and people they agree with.  But if you're different than I am, or if I don't like you, then my principles don't matter.

And this is a direction we've been taking in this country for quite a while now.  We've become a society in which people like to judge each other harshly and relentlessly, and such judgment allows us to make "exceptions" to our principles--we don't have to stick to them if the other person "deserves" something.  That person next door supports green people, so my principle of treating other people with dignity and respect doesn't apply to that person.  The man in the house across the street supports teaching something to my kids in school that I disagree with, so I'm not required to be honest to him because he doesn't deserve my honesty.

It's really quite sad and sick.  And the damage that this new ability to modify our own principles to fit different situations does is very real--we can hurt people, we can destroy communities, we can sabotage our own efforts to live well because we're not allowing ourselves to live honestly and live authentically.

I need to stick to my principles if I'm going to be able to live my life fully and happily.  If I believe in the principle that all people deserve my respect, then I really must respect the rights that other people have to their own beliefs.  No, I don't have to agree with them, and no, I don't have to support them, but I do need to stick to my principles.

And if I do want to follow those principles, I can't call them names, mock them, or treat them badly.  I can despise them and all that they stand for, especially when they're racist or misogynistic or cruel, but a principle of decency and respect is just that--a principle that I don't want to violate lest I make myself into a person who is much less than I want to be.  No, I don't need to socialize with them, and no, I don't need to tell them that their views are justified in any way, and no, I don't even need to feel that their beliefs are necessarily valid.  But I do need to respect their right to have those beliefs and to follow them.

But what if the acting out of those beliefs causes harm to others?  Then, of course, our principles of treating others with dignity and respect overrule any beliefs that cause people to harm others.  My principles cannot allow for the harm of anyone simply because I don't agree with them, but they also cannot allow for me to be wishy-washy and step back and do nothing when innocent people are being harmed.  If I were living in Minneapolis right now, for example, my principles would compel me to be out on the street, protesting, or working for justice in some other way.  Sitting quietly and saying nothing would simply contradict my principles that reflect my belief in social justice.

In short, we can look at it this way:

If one of my most important principles is for others to be treated fairly, then I must treat people fairly.
If one of my most important principles is that all people are created equal, then I must treat all people equally.
If I expect honesty from other people, then I must be honest myself.
If I expect my children not to swear, then I need to be careful of my own language.
If I expect other people to be loyal to me, then I must practice loyalty.

In short, if there's a disconnect between what we claim to be our principles that we hope will guide us in living our lives in certain ways and the ways that we actually live our lives, then we're most certainly NOT living life fully, and that's probably the case because of our own tendency to violate the principles that we claim to be important to us.

What are your most important principles?  Do you live by them all the time?  When you can answer "yes" to the second question, you'll be well on your way to living a full and fulfilling life.

Christmas Wishes (In Today's World)

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past,
courage for the present, hope for the future.
It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow
with blessings rich and eternal, and that every
path may lead to peace.

Agnes M. Pharo


Somehow, Christmas has always been a time when people like to think about other people, to think about what it means to be a kind, compassionate, caring human being who does good for other people without worrying about their nationalities, their skin color, their sexual orientation, their native language, or any of those other things that so many people lean on to justify their biases and prejudices.  Unfortunately, though, so many people in our world have allowed themselves to fall into the trap of allowing their biases and prejudices to dominate their world-view, and they've allowed those things to also dominate their decision-making processes, so we live in a world that's divided, among people who fear each other more than they love each other, who hate each other for no real reason, and who don't trust each other even on the most basic of levels.

But here we are--no matter how we feel about the world today or the ways that people are treating each other, we're in the middle of it all, right here, right now.  and realizing this truth calls us more than ever to be true to who we are, to our principles, to whatever ethical codes that we hold dear.  Do we feel that human beings should show kindness and compassion to each other?  Then we need to be showing kindness and compassion ourselves--and perhaps trying to show more of each in a world in which it seems that both qualities are in short supply.

Do we feel that there needs to be more love and hope in our world?  Then we need to start with ourselves, and make sure that we keep love in mind when we deal with others--we can't preach love while our own hearts and spirits aren't in a loving state.  And it's not easy to maintain a loving state when we see so many awful things being done to others who are helpless to defend themselves.

Christmas, of course, is a holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus, even though his birthday was likely not in December.  And if the holiday is about honoring Jesus--religious beliefs or preferences aside--then it seems to me that we should be thinking about things that Jesus taught.  After all, we're all encouraged to think about civil rights on Martin Luther King's birthday, and freedom on Lincoln's birthday, etc.  But because of the historic truth of the "Christian" churches committing all sorts of crimes against humanity, the teachings of the man take a back seat to the myth of the man's words that have been warped by religious leaders who have been doing little more than trying to justify their own awful deeds by presenting Jesus' words in ways that will make them seem to be following those very words, when in fact they're violating the man's teachings.

So my main Christmas wish would be that the people who believe that Jesus was the Messiah could start to actually understand what Jesus taught, and follow his true teachings, rather than simply listening to other people who are presenting their interpretations of the man's words.  Perhaps Jesus could come back for a few months and start an online course that he could make mandatory for anyone who calls themselves Christian, a course that will spell out explicitly what it means to follow the words of a man who taught kindness and compassion and love for one's neighbor.  If this would happen, MANY politicians would lose their next chance to be reelected, and MANY pastors and priests would be out of a job, taking them out of positions in which they influence people.

And that may be my only wish because I think it would be a great start.  If this were to happen, so much of the hypocrisy and discrimination in the world would cease, and we might not need anything more than this to create a kinder and gentler world.  I think I'll hold off on any other wishes until I see how this one turns out. . . .

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.

Feeling Overwhelmed and Helpless (in Today's World)

The more I think about the human suffering in our world and my
desire to offer a healing response, the more I realize how crucial
it is not to allow myself to become paralyzed by feelings of
helplessness and guilt.  More important than ever is to be very
faithful to my vocation to do well the few things I am called
to do and hold on to the joy and peace they bring me.  I must
resist the temptation to let the forces of darkness pull me into
despair and make me one more of their many victims.    -Henri Nouwen


"The more I think about the human suffering."  This is such a difficult concept to come to terms with, especially for those of us who are fortunate enough to not be subjected to things that make us suffer.  It seems that these days, many more people are suffering than ever before.  That may not be true, for when we figure in our immediate access to news that we probably never heard before, plus the sheer number of people on the planet, more suffering and more awareness of suffering seem inevitable.

However, it is also true that things are happening in today's world that we simply haven't witnessed before.  Never in my wildest imagination would I have imagined what has happened in Gaza for the last two years actually happening, with the world watching and doing little to nothing to help out.  Not only have we seen a military killing almost indiscriminately, but we've also seen a situation in which food and medical aid for people who were sick and starving were completely forbidden, and people who tried to get food to starving children have been actually killed for their actions.

And in the United States, families are being torn apart because we have masked, uniformed people roaming the streets and beating and arresting virtually anyone they want, with little to no control.  Foreign-born people who are in the country legally are being arrested and deported, often for no legitimate reason.  Many people in the country wake up every day afraid of what might happen to them if the officers decide to arrest them today, for they often have little legal recourse available to them, even if what the ICE officers is doing is illegal.

As much as I would like to, I cannot solve these problems.  I cannot help these people personally.  And I have to say that it hurts to say that, because I would like to be able to do so.  So what can I do to help me to get along with my life without being overcome by feelings of helplessness and despair?  I think that Henri has hit the nail right where it needs to be hit:  I can continue to do what I'm doing and do it well, helping myself to avoid despair and to bring some peace and hope to the people who are a part of my world.  I'm not a person who has universal effect on anything, but I can keep on keeping on and put more positive energy out into the world.  The hard part is being satisfied with that, of course, but that's simply a question of my own perspective, and my acceptance of some very real limitations.  I can't do everything, and no one expects me to.  I need to do the best I can with what I have, and be satisfied with that.  I may be helpless to stop massacres in the Sudan, but I'm not helpless when it comes to showing kindness to others and helping them in ways that I'm capable of.

(page coming very soon)

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.

Life without Busyness

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

Gunther Grass


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

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

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

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

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


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

Brittin Oakman

Taking Action in Small Ways

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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?

Sometimes Things Come Crashing--A Paragraph a Day

I find it important to keep in mind that things like holidays can be catalysts, and not always in a good way.  This year, for example, I've experienced a great deal of loss in several different ways.  And while I'm not dwelling on the losses, once Christmas comes around, I've found that those things come back to me very quickly and very forcefully, even though I didn't know exactly what was happening.  It wasn't like I was focusing on the loss and therefore became miserable--rather, I started feeling very strange, and only after a little while did I realize exactly why I was feeling the way I was.  And if this can happen to me, then I can only imagine how other people are feeling about their own losses, many of which have been much more drastic than those I've experienced.  It's a good reminder to me to show compassion all that I can, and to withhold judgment about why people are feeling the things they feel, and reacting the ways they're reacting.  I can do much more good in the world understanding people more than I judge them, and there's nothing like a bit of my own pain to remind me just how much pain other people are feeling, usually solely as a result of outside forces.  I don't want to be the person who judges someone else and therefore decides to be judgmental rather than compassionate; I really want to be the person who shows compassion and thus helps someone else to work their way through problems they're experiencing, and there are very few teachers more effective than my own pain and loss to help me to understand the pain and loss that other people are feeling.  It's important to mourn and grieve when we feel our own loss, and it's also important to try to understand the lessons that our pain and loss are teaching us, even as we're going through the misery that we feel.  If we learn from our loss, it's a much better thing than if we just feel sorry for ourselves.

Too Much--A Paragraph a Day

Some of my students today told me that another teacher of theirs had assigned them to read a rather long novel over the Christmas break and to write a letter based on that book.  I told them in all seriousness that they should ask that teacher if he understands what "break" means.  We take breaks for a reason, because we're tired and we need to renew and rejuvenate ourselves.  I've known far too many teachers over the years, though, who really have no respect for students' need to actually take a break from school and to be able to spend some time not worrying about assignments or readings or anything school related.  The Christmas break is the perfect time to allow students to unwind and to allow the material we've covered all fall to sink in, to allow their minds to process things that need to be processed without placing any more academic demands on them.  I never have any guilt taking a break, because I know that in the long run, my breaks are going to be make me far more capable of accomplishing what I need to accomplish than working myself to exhaustion or frustration would make me.  I feel very bad for the students, and I also feel bad for people who will never take breaks from their jobs or their families or other obligations.  Rest is sometimes much more useful in many ways than continued effort is, and once we learn this lesson,  we can make our lives more restful AND more productive, and I hope to never deprive myself of rest when it's genuinely needed.

A Run in the Cold--A Paragraph a Day

I went for a run after work today, even though the temperature was only about 37 degrees.  That was fine with me, though--with long sleeves and running pants and a nice warm hat, I practically didn't notice the temperature at all.  That's the way it usually is with a run after work on days like this--I don't feel like going outside because it's cold and my home is nice and warm and cozy, but I force myself to do so anyway.  And once I get out there, I enjoy it a lot.  Some of the best runs of my life have come on days when I would have preferred not to run at all due to weather conditions.  But I've run anyway, and it's been great.  It often makes me wonder what else in my life I might have been avoiding, and that I might have missed because it seemed like it might be unpleasant.  It's so easy for us to slip into comfort mode, to look around ourselves and say, "This is nice right here and right now--there's no need to do anything else."  The thing is, though, that running is the activity that most contributes to my good health, and if I don't do it, I gain weight and I lose fitness.  I'm not a fanatic about fitness, but I do want to stay healthy, and running is an important part of that.  What else could I be enjoying in life because I think it might be a bit unpleasant?  What am I avoiding that I should be searching out and enjoying?  I'm definitely not always the best judge of what's best for me, and it may be worth my while to start paying attention to things that I'm avoiding for some reason.  Who knows?  There's a chance that what I'm avoiding could be just what I need!  The run in the cold today was very enjoyable, even though it seemed that it wouldn't be.  What else is tricking me?

Children Inside--A Paragraph a Day

The most sophisticated people I know--inside they are all children.   -Jim Henson


It always astonishes me to see just how much we tend to value the things of adulthood and just how little we tend to value the things of childhood.  In my mind and in my heart, the things of childhood seem to be much more authentic, much more kind, much more interested in the world, much more human.  As adults we start to judge and to demand and to expect.  As children, we tend to wonder, to appreciate, to love, to hope.  We allow our minds to fly as we give ourselves wings to think of things that aren't necessarily important to anyone else, while as adults we think in the ways we're "supposed" to think, and we allow our perspectives to be overwhelmed by the demands of society.  While being a child isn't necessarily something that we all want to do, I do find it a shame that we for some reason reject out of hand all the things of childhood when so many of those things could make for a very happy adulthood if we could only hold on to them.  I love feeling a sense of wonder when the snow is falling, and I love looking at a new person with no judgment at all--just the simple acceptance of another human being who is in my life.  We can all be children inside if we don't simply reject the things of childhood, and if we allow them to be an important part of who we are--and if we do so, our lives will be richer and more fulfilling.

Taking a Rest--A Paragraph a Day

One of the things that I like best in this world is a day when I don't have tons of obligations, when I can look at the weather report and see that we're supposed to be hit with a severe rainstorm that's going to last all day, and I can say to myself, "It's a rest day."  A day with heavy rain doesn't allow for many of the chores and tasks that I normally do around the house, so when it happens, I try to take advantage of the weather and do as little as I can on that day--and it's wonderful when it happens on a weekend.  After all, I spend the whole week working, and my normal tendency over the weekend is to get some work done here, stuff that I can't do during the week because I'm busy at work.  I don't feel that I overwork myself, because I actually enjoy doing many of the chores that I do around the house, but it is nice when nature tells me on a given day that I'm not going to be doing any tasks at all.  Of course, the temptation to do work online then comes up, but I've gotten pretty good at rejecting that sort of thing in favor of a nice nap or some time reading.  We all need rest--that's a given in life, non-negotiable--but many of us are reticent to take the rests when we have the opportunity to do so because we feel somehow guilty, like for some reason we should be doing some work on Saturday or Sunday afternoon simply because.  So I do my best to force myself to rest, to reject the temptation to do some online work in favor of lying down on the couch to nap for half an hour or so.  When we have the chance to rest, we should take it whenever it rears its head--otherwise we risk burning out, and then we won't be helpful to anyone at all in any way at all.

Youthful Decisions--A Paragraph a Day

Working with young people, I'm constantly faced with certain frustrations.  If I could teach them anything that I think might help them to lead happy and fulfilling lives, high on my list would be the art of decision-making.  What I see in the kids of today is often an inability to make decisions that will prove to be helpful to them, or positive for them.  Of course, there have been kids making bad decisions for all of history--they're still young and they usually don't have the experience behind them that would help them to understand how to weigh their options before making important decisions.  In fact, they often don't have the experience necessary to even understand or recognize their options.  If they've had good teachers in their lives, they're usually a bit better prepared for decision-making, but it seems that these days they have less positive adult input in their lives than they used to.  This lack of connection with older people who could be passing on their knowledge and wisdom is a great detriment to the young people, who tend to get most of their "learning" from screens these days.  Unfortunately, the screens can't help them when some sort of dilemma arises, and the lack of previous learning from the people who used to be role models often keeps them from making decisions that are positive and helpful to them in their lives.  I do my best at school to teach them how to look at things in ways that will help them to make good decisions, but the deck seems to be stacked against them in many ways.  So if you see any young people who seem to be making really bad decisions, don't be too upset with them.  Rather, it may do them--and you--a great deal of good to try to help them to understand the importance of decision-making, and help them to develop a process of their own to come to decisions that will help them to build their lives rather than sabotage them.

Rainy Days--A Paragraph a Day

It's raining outside right now, and I love it.  I don't really feel a need or desire to go anywhere or do anything, so it's nice just to sit here on the couch and relax and write a few words.  The darkness outside makes the atmosphere in here more intimate, more welcoming, more comfortable, and I try to take advantage of that feeling by pulling a throw over me and doing something like this that doesn't require any physical output from me.  It's nice to rest, especially when the world outside is telling me that it's a good time to rest.  It makes it easier to do, and easier to enjoy.  I've always loved rainy days--sometimes I go running in the rain, sometimes I go for a walk, and sometimes I just sit inside and enjoy the coziness of being warm and dry while the weather is dark and cold.  I find that I'm often much more creative when the weather changes regularly--I've lived in places where it's been sunny for weeks at a time, and in those places I never really feel the creativity well up in me as it does in places like this.  Perhaps it's just my body going with the flow of the weather, with its ups and downs and highs and lows.  I feel very privileged to be able to spend rainy days inside a warm and dry home, and I hope to keep appreciating them for as long as I possibly can while I'm still here in this body on this planet.

Karma? I Don't Want to Think about It--A Paragraph a Day

I believe in Karma to a certain extent--I'm not sure that I believe in it as many people define it, but I do believe that there is reward for people who consistently do good and act kind and give instead of take all the time.  I just don't want to think about it.  If I think about Karma, it seems to me, then I'm going to be committing acts of goodness only in order to be rewarded for them.  I'm going to help other people just in the hopes of the universe passing something good to me in return for my actions.  But I don't want to be thinking about my rewards when I perform an action that I think is good.  Rather, I want to commit such an act because I know that I'm doing something for someone who needs it.  I want to give knowing that I'm fulfilling a need, not because I'm hoping for some sort of return on my investment.  I don't want to be wondering constantly where my reward is--I simply want to do good things for other people because they're the right things to do.  I want to give because it's right to give; I want to share because I truly want to help someone else who needs for someone to share with them.  Yes, I love the concept of Karma, but I hope never to think of it as motivation for being kind or helpful or loving.  If it affects me, then fine, but if it doesn't, I'll still be okay because I know that when I saw a need, I did what I could to fill it, reward or no, promise or no.

Nature's Lessons--A Paragraph a Day

 Nature always takes her time.  Great oaks don't become great overnight.  They also lose a lot of leaves, branches, and bark in the process of becoming great.    -Andrew Matthews


Many of the quotations and passages that I read about nature have a similar focus--nature does things as nature does things, and things turn out as they're supposed to.  And in the process, things of nature go through some rather difficult challenges and trials.  But in theory, they always end up where they're supposed to.  In my life, I've lost my share of branches and leaves and bark, but I'm okay.  I'm doing work that's fulfilling and I'm in a relationship that's very healthy.  I live in a home that I love and I have enough to eat, to wear, and to share, and even a lot of excess stuff that I don't really need, but that I do appreciate a lot.  If I had given up at the first sign of adversity, if I had become discouraged by the first autumn's loss of all my leaves, if I had found the loss of some branches and bark to be unbearable, I never would have made it to where I am.  And if this metaphor from nature is valid for me and can be applied to my life and experiences, it's important that I look for other lessons that nature can teach me.  I may not be a great oak one day, but how about a really nice cypress, or a pear tree that bears fruit to share with people and animals?  I am going to face obstacles and difficulties, but it's important that I look past them to what I am to become, instead of just what I happen to be today.