How Quickly Things Change--A Paragraph a Day

A paragraph a day?  Hardly.  This past week has seen no entries on this page at all, mostly because of the death of a very good friend in Germany.  In addition to the news of the death, time has been filled planning flights and hotels and time off from work so that we can attend the funeral.  I've always been one of those people who aren't all that taken by funerals--after all, my friend is gone and she won't know whether I go or not--but I recognize that I'm going to this one because I care about the family who's left behind.  I don't feel that I'm going for the friend who passed away at all, but for my friends in the family.  I don't feel a need for closure through a ceremony because I always did my best to let her know that I cared for her while she was still alive, and because her death wasn't a complete surprise.  But it will be nice to see my friends and offer them my support and compassion, because after all, isn't that what we're here for?  Offering kindness and compassion to others, including those people for whom we care?


I am not going to die.  I'm going home like a shooting star.

Sojourner Truth

Not What We Expect--A Paragraph a Day

Sometimes I'm kind of surprised at the way things turn out.  It's spring, so I can finally start doing long bike rides again.  The roads are dry and the air isn't too cold for it (this morning for my ride it was up to 35 degrees!).  What surprised me about the ride, though, is the same thing that surprised me last year about this time, and the year before that, and the year before that.  When I go out for my first long ride of the year, I expect by butt to hurt after two hours on the seat, and I expect my legs to hurt after two hours of steady pedaling.  But I find that the part of my body that suffers the most discomfort are my hands.  They're simply not used to being "stuck" for two hours on a handlebar, steering and absorbing every little shock that the bike experiences.  I think that life's like that sometimes--we know what difficulties we expect to face, but it's possible that some other difficulty may be more challenging.  Perhaps we simply need to expand our awareness a bit and recognize that something like a bike ride--or a career, or an education, or a relationship--is definitely going to give us some challenges, but they may not be in the areas that we expect challenges in.  Perhaps if we're ready for something different, if we're able to keep in mind that things may not turn out the way we expect them to, we may be ready to deal with such surprises effectively, and not let them overwhelm us.  And who knows?  One day we may even be able to prepare ourselves for such things and not even have to worry about them happening at all!

Why Can't We Be Tolerant?--A Paragraph a Day

Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every person present his or her views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population.    -Albert Einstein

Boy, we sure haven't learned this lesson, have we?  When I was younger, I used to think that things could only be better, that by the time I got "older," we'd have a much more tolerant, much more diverse society.  I never, ever would have guessed that things could actually be worse, that intolerance and prejudice would be even stronger in the world.  But things are, indeed, worse in many ways, and many people are treating each other worse nowadays than I've ever seen before.  Of course, in many ways there have been improvements, but in our world today people have somehow legitimized prejudice and turned it into something positive simply by using different words for it.  And that makes me very, very sad.  We're all human beings and we all come from the same sources.  We are all born equal--little babies who need the help of adults just to survive.  We're born without bias or prejudice, yet many of us learn those things as we grow up, and they cause us to treat other people differently than we normally would, and differently that we should.  My personal hope is that we somehow reach the point of "tolerance in the entire population," and that all human beings benefit from it when it happens.  We're all going to have a better life when we do our best to help others to have better lives, no matter who they are.

Oh My Goodness!--A Paragraph a Day

Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward thing we are.
To be good is the great thing.    -Edwin Hubbell Chapin

I think that pretty much all of us want to be good at some level, but that some people just aren't very good at being good.  They've become hardened, or afraid, or unsure of themselves, and they put on a hard front to try to impress other people or to make themselves feel stronger than they actually are.  This isn't necessarily their fault, of course--the ways that people act come from a whole bunch of different influences, and people have learned coping strategies from all sorts of different people in all sorts of different ways.  Personally, I would love to think that I'm a "good" person, whatever that means.  I would like to be good to others, someone who helps rather than hurts, someone who gives more than I take.  I don't know if I achieve this or not, but I do try, even if I'm not always focused on trying to be good or on trying to do the good thing in any given situation.  But I think that Edwin makes an extremely important point above--while my focus on being good is usually on what I'm doing to and for others, my efforts may be better directed towards making myself good in my heart, in my core.  If I can do that, of course, then whatever I do will simply be good because it comes from a good source.  And that would be very, very good, wouldn't it?

Taxes--A Paragraph a Day

It's tax season again--can you feel my stress level going up?  Not because we owe tons of money (we don't, because we don't make tons of money), but because the forms that we have to fill out are simply horrible, full of directions that often need three or four readings to be clear, and even then I'm never completely sure that I'm putting in the right numbers unless I'm copying them straight off a W-2.  Once I get past that stage, I have to depend upon my interpretation of the directions I'm reading, and I'll be honest--I'm never completely sure of what I do.  It's that unsureness that causes me the stress--am I doing this right?  Am I leaving something out, something that could cause me to owe more money, or something that could potentially get me a larger refund?  I'm not stressed about getting caught doing anything wrong, because I do try my best to be accurate and to do things right, but I constantly wish that things could be simpler for people like me.  My wife and I make modest amounts of money, and all the calculations that go into the forms are like some form of torture for those of us who aren't mathematically inclined.  Charge me a tax based on my income and that's that, okay?  I look forward to finishing up every year and getting this stress out of my life, and I look forward to the next ten or eleven months of not thinking about taxes again.  My life is much fuller and richer without the added stress of trying to do the math accurately and responsibly, and I wouldn't have all this extra stress if the process were just a bit simpler.  Since the stress is here, I have to accept it and deal with it, but I sure can wish that it weren't here, can't I?

People Who Give Me Space--A Paragraph a Day

I've been running most of my life, and I can tell you that at times, it's rather dangerous.  Unfortunately, the danger isn't something that's inherent in the activity; rather, it's caused by drivers who choose not to give runners (and bikers, of course) enough space on the road.  I can be out on a country road with no other cars in sight anywhere, running on the road, and a car will pass me and give me absolutely no extra space at all.  This is dangerous because of things like the mirrors on cars that stick out farther than drivers realize, the small obstacles that we face like bad pavement and potholes, and the possibility of tripping or falling.  There are many, many drivers who are courteous and considerate, and they do all they can to give me as much space as possible.  They cross the double yellow line in order to make sure that they pass me safely.  On the other hand, there are many drivers who simply refuse to be as safe as possible, and they often pass within inches of me even when there's no oncoming traffic at all.  It frustrates me and sometimes scares me, but that's life, right?  I try to take the lesson from those who are considerate and do what they do in such a situation--always give as much space as possible and keep everyone as safe as possible.  The double yellow line is there for a reason, but when there's no oncoming traffic, the line means nothing at all, and many people understand that as a rule of life, it's much better safe than sorry.  And I very much appreciate them.

Too Much Self-Improvement?--A Paragraph a Day

The ego will always be able to find ways to keep the aspirant
busy in self-improvement, thus binding him or her to the
fact that the self is still there behind all the improvements.
For why should the ego kill itself?
-Paul Brunton


There's a part of me that's not really too interested in self-improvement any more.  Of course, I still want to become the best version of me that I can be, but that doesn't mean that I constantly have to keep improving.  Rather, at a certain point we simply have to live, to experience our lives for what they are without thinking of the shortcomings we have that we want to demolish.  We have to remember that when we seek to improve ourselves, there's an implicit assumption that there are shortcomings that we have to somehow "fix."  Perhaps we don't need fixing, though.  Perhaps the most important thing that we can do is simply let our lives be our lives, and live them as best as we can.  Maybe it's important that we remind ourselves constantly to be kind and gentle and compassionate, without thinking about a bigger picture or some sort of abstract ideal that we wish to attain.  I really do want to live my life to the fullest, but I think that in the past I've understood that to mean in some way that I have to fix my flaws.  Perhaps when we devote ourselves to our daily lives fully and completely, those flaws either fade away or become completely irrelevant.  Maybe we don't need to fix anything at all.  Maybe we just have to live our lives.