Beware!

It's interesting that we use this word mostly to warn people of dangerous things that could harm us.  It's pretty obvious just from looking at the word that it's a combination of two words:  be (ben in Middle English) + aware or wary, which means watchful, cautious, or alert.  It's one of my favorite words of all, because it doesn't just mean to be cautious of danger to me--it also means to pay attention to all of the little things of life, those little things that we so often tend to overlook, but which definitely have the potential to harm us in many different ways.

It's important for us to keep this word in mind all the time, for it's important that we be wary of our own actions, thoughts, and beliefs.  Only when we're fully aware of what we're doing or thinking can we start to recognize the cause and effect relationships between what we do and think and the quality of our lives.  All of us want to improve the quality of our lives--and I'm not speaking of striving to achieve luxury or ownership, but striving to become happy and fulfilled.  The only way that we can make such an improvement, though, is to be sure that we know what we're doing in the first place.

For example, it took me a long, long time to realize just how much my beliefs about myself and relationships were hurting me.  I've always tried to be a nice person, but that never helped me much when it came to developing relationships with other people.  The most dominant element of who I was as far as relationships were concerned was my fear--and that fear came from the belief that other people didn't want to be with me, and would end up hurting me if somehow they ever were with me.  This is a fear that's quite common for people who grew up with an alcoholic parent, but one that I truly wasn't aware of, and that I could not be wary of as long as I wasn't aware of it.
There are many things that I need to be wary of in life, for they tend to creep up on me and affect my life in negative ways.  For example, I need to beware of my ego, for it often affects the ways that I treat other people, and the ways that I go about doing certain things--and it also affects my decisions when it comes to being honest or not.  How many times have I wanted to say "I didn't do that" when I actually had, just because my ego doesn't want to admit that I might have failed or done something poorly?

I need to beware of my own assumptions, especially those concerning other people.  When I make such assumptions, I stop trying to learn about others, for I think I already know what I need to know.  But I don't.  What we know about other people and their thoughts and feelings is almost nothing; when we assume that we do know about them, then we stop learning about them.  We also more than likely will miss many things that could be very important to us--when I assume that a book's going to be no good, for example, I never give myself the chance to find out whether it is or not.  I can also hurt other people when I assume that they don't want a certain something, so I pass on the chance.

I need to beware of my tendency to take things for granted.  I have many things in life that are very important to me, and I need to be thankful for everything.  Once I take something for granted--especially other people--then I see less value in that thing or person, even though it's still just as valuable as ever.  The problem is with me, in not seeing that value any more.  When I refuse to recognize and appreciate that value, though, my life becomes somewhat poorer, and it's a poverty that can and should be avoided simply by being mindful that yes, this person is valuable to me, and I should appreciate the person and his or her contribution to my life, no matter how small that contribution may be.
I need to beware of my feelings, and especially I need to beware of acting based on those feelings.  My feelings are often based upon patterns of thought that I developed long ago, and they very often are inappropriate or inaccurate now that I'm a much older person than I was when they started.  When I was very young, I might have learned to shut down when someone said something mean or insulting to me, for I thought as a kid that doing so would make the hurt feelings better.  That was never true, though--first of all, feeling hurt was my choice, though I didn't know it then, and now I have different choices to make regarding my feelings.  If someone says something mean or insulting to me today, I see that as a reflection of that person, and no longer a reflection of me.  My feelings have already caused enough damage to me in my life, and I need to beware of their undue influence upon my state of mind.

It's very important that I beware of my fear, for this is an aspect of who I am that has almost never served me well.  It's caused me to lose potential relationships, to miss out on things that could have been fun and rewarding, to feel badly about myself, to avoid situations that could have been beneficial to me.  Of course, fear can be helpful as an indicator of danger sometimes, but most often, my fear is simply of how things may turn out badly later--not of how things are or how things are really going to be.  My fear has been the cause of many hours of pain and grief, and I don't want to continue to give it that kind of power over me.

And on a very superficial level, I need to beware of the people on this planet who do their best to improve their own lives by hurting others.  I need to be aware of scams, of thieves, of liars, of cheats.  Fortunately, there are relatively few of these people, and I can be aware of what they do and how they do it in order to avoid falling prey to their plans and techniques.  Also on a superficial level, I need to beware of cars when I cross the street, of standing too close to the edge of things, of sharp objects, of stove burners that are hot, of food that is old and moldy, and of many other things that can harm me if I'm not careful.  But these are things that I notice in certain situations, and not things that I need to be paranoid about during every waking hour.
It's necessary to beware of some things, but we don't want to live our lives being always wary of things--we need to spend our lives being appreciative of things, being mindful of the beauty and wonder of the world, not afraid of the dangers of the world.  I can be wary of the dangers of a mountain path where there may be bears or mountain lions and still take that path and still enjoy myself--being aware of possible problems does not mean that we don't completely avoid a certain activity or place or person.  I can have a friendship with a thief, even, as long as I'm careful not to expose too much of what I have to that person.

So beware.  Beware of the things about yourself that keep you from living fully.  Don't let them control your life--use them for what they do give you that's positive, but don't ever allow them complete control.  Be aware of the potential problems that they can cause and do your best to avoid those problems, but remember that those parts of yourself never should define who you are or how you live.  Your full life is up to you, and the ways that you live it.

Intolerance

If humans are to survive, we will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between people and between cultures. We will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear.   -Gene Roddenberry

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It frightens me--and makes me very sad--to see how little tolerance we have in our country for people who are different than we are, for people who think differently than we do.  Somehow we've grown to let our fears do our thinking for us, fears that people who do things differently than we do somehow will force us to do things differently ourselves. We're afraid that the world of tomorrow will be different than the world of today because people who are different than we are are going to change that world.

It's pretty obvious, though, that the world of today is much different than the world of yesterday.  Changes are happening, constantly.  They always have, and they always will.  If we could accept this fact and come to expect it, even, we might find that we're not so afraid of changes--and we may come to accept and love the people we know who do and think differently than we do.

This doesn't mean, of course, that we blindly accept differences just because they're different.  I will never be tolerant of a person who wishes to harm other people for no reason other than his or her own gain.  I can't accept racism or gender bias or any approach that attempts to put other human beings at a lower level--but which ends up putting the racist person at the lower level. But legitimate differences, such as religious beliefs or political ideals, should be a way for us to learn from each other, not a source of disdain for each other.

Our current political world shows almost a complete lack of tolerance for opposing views. The people in positions of power are modeling behaviors and attitudes that can only harm others, and almost never help anyone except the people who agree with them politically and ideologically. What is it that makes us be so intolerant of the ideas of others? What makes us intolerant of their beliefs? Of their racial and ethnic origins? Wise person after wise person has told us that the cause of our intolerance is fear, and the fear that causes us to be intolerant also makes us incapable of learning from these people who have so much to offer us, if we can only find ways to accept it in the spirit of love and compassion instead of looking upon them in the spirit of judgment.

Take the risk and find ways to be not just tolerant, but accepting and loving, and you'll find that your new-found ability to reach out and love will turn your life into a much brighter, much more fulfilling experience.

Making Decisions

There's no football for me this year. All my life I've watched a lot of football games in the fall, but this year I won't be doing so. It's not because of anything in particular, just a result of the growing commercial nature of the professional and college levels, paired with the lack of high expectations of the players in both areas. Football has become a completely commercialized endeavor that has lost the fun, in my eyes, as it's embraced money and exposure. Rules tend to be enforced on a selective basis, and often it's hard to understand just how one player can be penalized harshly for something that another player received no penalty for at all. And on a societal level, the players are still being idolized, to a greater extent now than they ever were when I was growing up. The full explanation of why I'm not watching would probably take pages, so I won't go into all the details; this season, though, I won't be watching any football.

When all is said and done, it won't be a big loss--I've always been a casual observer at best. I don't have any real favorite teams, I rarely really cared who won or lost, and I couldn't name more than two or three players on any given team. So it's not like I'm giving up an addiction that controlled my life.

But what does that have to do with living my life fully? It's simple--over the past few seasons, I've been feeling a growing sense of discomfort as I've watched games. I've been feeling that I've been spending too much time watching something that hasn't contributed any true meaning to my life, and during that time I've been neglecting things that really do add meaning. And when I added in my discomfort with the extreme commercialization of the sport, I was experiencing a growing sense of cognitive dissonance as I watched the games. I simply started to feel that I was wasting time that would be much better spent doing other things that involved people who are actually a part of my life rather than focusing my attention on a large group of people whom I will never even meet, much less who will ever be a part of my life.

This is a choice that isn't for everyone. There are those who like the games and who don't mind the inequities that they see--after all, they give them a chance to argue with others about penalties and such. There are those who don't mind the way that we're teaching our young people to idolize athletes. And there are those who simply enjoy watching the games--which used to be me. Now that I've made the decision, I feel a sense of relief and a sense of freedom that I didn't feel before when the season rolled around each September. I know that my autumn now is going to be filled with time with friends, time spent with kids, time spent relaxing, time spent working, but not time spent watching games and getting frustrated with the whole drama.

For me, right here and right now, at this point in my life, this is the right decision to make--I feel it very strongly. And I'm looking forward to carrying out that decision and focusing on things that are truly important, like relationships and learning and paying attention to my here and now, and not a three-hour game that truly has absolutely no effect on any aspect of my life.

I Believe

Your basic energy signature is the sum of all your thoughts and beliefs.  You define your personality, physical attributes, and behavior.  You are the only one who can create or change your thoughts and your beliefs.  And your beliefs create what you experience as life.    -Bruce I. Doyle III

  

  

We've been talking in one of our classes about beliefs--how we develop them, why we defend them, what they mean to us. With first-year college students, their beliefs are still very strong because the students are at an age at which they feel that they're right about most things, but they're also very fragile because the students are constantly being exposed to new ideas, concepts, and information. It's fascinating and rewarding to be able to work with people of this age, and even more so when we're able to explore topics such as beliefs, in which they're extremely interested.

One of the things that we discuss is whether or not it's possible to live life without beliefs. Personally, I'm pretty sure that the fewer beliefs that I have, the more smooth and enjoyable my life is. I've found over the years that my beliefs always limit me and never open up my mind or heart. They limit my actions, they limit my reactions, and they cause me to judge and to reject and to accept. They help me to form biases, and they force me to reject new information because it may conflict with what I "believe."

One of the saddest things that I've noticed is that as I've changed my beliefs, I've recognized the things that I've rejected in the past that I would accept now, based on my new beliefs. That's why I want them out of my life--I can't trust them. If my belief causes me to treat another person or group of people in ways that are less than loving and compassionate, then those beliefs are damaging to me, not helpful, for the way that I treat others because of the beliefs is not the way that I want to be treating others.

Can I let go of all my beliefs? It sounds like a daunting task that has little chance of success, when all is said and done. But can it be done? I believe so. But it's going to take a lot of self-examination, day after day, of my motivations for doing things--am I saying this because I really feel it at the moment, or am I saying it as a result of a certain belief? Did I say I don't want to get together with that person because I really can't or don't want to, or because that person challenges a particular belief of mine? And as I examine and identify more beliefs, perhaps one day I'll be able to free myself of them and see the world with unsullied eyes--eyes that accept the world with wonder and passion rather than eyes that judge and categorize based on a belief that may or may not be valid.

You Are Still a Kid

Happy are they who still love something they loved in the nursery: They have not been broken in two by time; they are not two persons, but one, and they have saved not only their souls but their lives.    -G.K. Chesterton

The idea of keeping the child alive in my spirit is a very important one to me. When I look around at the adults with whom I have a lot of contact, one of the things that I see regularly is that those people who are letting life bring them down tend to also be the people who don't have the ability to see the magic and wonder of the world, those people who show absolutely no indication at all that they've actually been children. They've fully and completely "grown up," and they're now serious people who have nothing to do with the things that children love.

But as children, we loved more purely--until a certain point, we were able to love things just as they were, not for what we could get out of them. That point was different for each of us, that point at which we started to love things for the benefits they could bring us. Those benefits could have been status, other people's admiration, money, clothing, or whatever--we learned that the world wasn't magic, that it was something we could manipulate for our own good. And we stopped seeing the world as a magical place once we decided to use the world to help us to "get ahead," which in reality was actually falling behind.

That's why it's so important that we pay attention to that part of us that was a kid--so that we don't fall behind any further, so that we continue to be able to love things purely for what they are, not for any benefit they can provide for us.

The adult doesn't have to be a different person than the kid was--there are many, many aspects of ourselves when we were kids that can help us to be happier and healthier people. When we were kids we were more easily satisfied and we didn't think nearly as much about what other people thought about us, and both of those traits are generally regarded as traits of people who tend to be happier than others. I'm sure you can come up with more of them. And that kid is still an important part of you--perhaps it's time that you uncovered that child that you were and allowed him or her to see the world and revel in its wonder and magic, instead of constantly seeing the world through jaded and disillusioned eyes. Let the kid do the seeing for you, and you'll be amazed at how beautiful the world and everything in it can be.

And an important first step may be to love something from the nursery again, be it a stuffed animal, a bouncing ball, a favorite toy, or anything else that elicited sincere, loving feelings. Don't allow it to remain buried under the years of crud that other adults told you was important. Your life and your happiness are too important for you to allow that child to remain out of your life--bring him or her back into your life, and enjoy his or her company!

Weaknesses

I have quite a few weaknesses. More importantly, I have no problems admitting that I have them. I remember names and faces very poorly; while I'm a decent runner, I'm very poor at running on trails; I judge people rather quickly based on superficial evidence; I'm not good at putting stuff away in its place; I'm good at organizing but poor at writing things down; and I could keep going on and on, but it would serve no purpose, really. To me, the most important thing is to be aware of my weaknesses so that I can try to compensate for them in other ways.

For example, even though I judge others quickly, I also have developed the habit of recognizing my judgments and then asking myself if that judgment is justified. So almost as soon as I find myself judging someone else, I also find myself thinking, "But wait a minute. . . is that actually true or justified?" While I have a hard time writing things down, I also have developed the habit of having index cards and pens with me very often, which allows me to write things down more often than I would otherwise. It's not a perfect solution, but I've tried others and it's what works the best.

Knowing my weaknesses helps me to know when I'm going to have to apply extra effort, such as in my teaching--keeping track of grades is hard for me, but setting up a system in which it will be easier is a rather simple thing for me to do--a bit time-consuming, but not difficult. Because I have a hard time putting stuff away, I try to have at least one or two places where I can drop everything and then later sort through things.

These are simply ways to compensate for some of my weaknesses. These "weaknesses," of course, are more a result of societal norms than they are truly weaknesses--in a different culture, they might be considered very normal traits. Being a poor trail runner only affects me if I run trails; otherwise, it's a completely unimportant element of who I am. But knowing this weakness helps me to decide not to run with some friends who are good at it when they're going out for a long trail run--I would slow them down and probably be miserable myself if I were to go with them.

There's absolutely no problem with having weaknesses--we all have many of them, and that's fine. Problems arise when we ignore or deny them, when we pretend we don't have them or we don't admit to them and commit ourselves to do something in an area of weakness. Then our stress levels rise and things become less enjoyable to do, and that's never a good combination.

What are your weaknesses? If you know them, you can compensate for them or simply avoid having to do things in those areas. And if you're able to do that, you can concentrate on your strengths and get even better at those things--and that's always something very positive.

Relay

I just was fortunate enough to be able to do a relay with some very incredible people on a team. The relay was just over 230 miles, and it took three days. We had a team of six, so each of us ran about 40 miles over those three days, through mountains and valleys, past lakes and rivers, in the heat of the afternoon and the cool of the pre-sunrise morning (on one day we started at 4:30). It's obviously an endurance event to a certain extent, but it was also much more than that--it was six people who supported each other, encouraged each other, helped each other, and did the job that they had committed themselves to do in order to help the team.

Relays are a great exercise in letting go of any sort of need to control things. While I was doing my legs, I had control over what I did, of course, but as soon as I hit the hand of the next runner, I was simply an observer, and I had to trust that person to do the best that he or she could do at that time. Usually, that meant a couple of hours of spectating as I waited for my next leg to come up, but it also meant getting to the next exchange zone so that the current runner wouldn't reach it with no one there. And yes, glitches happen sometimes, but for the most part what we learn on a relay race is that we can rely on one another--that we can let go and trust that others are going to come through on what they've said they're going to do.

And even when the glitches do occur, they happen because of honest mistakes, not because of any other reason. A mistake doesn't mean that you can't trust a person any more--a mistake means simply that the person made a mistake and is hopefully a bit wiser now because of it. But mistakes on the part of others are often good because they force you to find a way to compensate or to find out how much you have in you. For example, when my teammates weren't at one exchange zone when I finished a leg, I just had to keep on going. They had misread the directions and ended up at the following zone; my choices were to stop and wait for them or to keep going, and I kept going. They realized their mistake rather quickly and came to me about a mile later; I got in an extra mile of running and it was no big deal.

But for 99% of the time, things went really, really well. We helped each other; we encouraged each other; we ran for and with each other. We enjoyed our surroundings and each other's company, and we kept on racking up the miles as the hours passed.

Over the course of three days we covered just over 230 miles as a team. I ran about 40 miles, and for the other 190 miles I had to trust my teammates to do the best they could do--and they did so. It's nice being in a situation over which I have no real control except for my own contribution--and in which it's necessary for me to trust others. Our society tries to tell us that it's important to trust only yourself and to take care of everything you need yourself, but our society is wrong. Independence can be important sometimes, but interdependence and cooperation are much, much more important to our world and to our spirits.