We've got to have fun

Fun is fundamental.  There is no way around it.  You absolutely must
have fun.  Without fun, there is no enthusiasm.  Without enthusiasm,
there is no energy.  Without energy, there are only shades of gray.
-Doug Hall


I know many people who consider having fun to be of secondary importance.  They're focused on work and tasks and paying bills, and to them, having fun is something for kids--or worse, something childish.  "Life's serious," they'll tell you.  "You have to take it seriously."  Of course, there isn't a smile on their faces when they tell you this.

I've had enough of taking things too seriously, though.  I've seen the results of this:  ulcers and high blood pressure and addictions and depression.  We do need to take much of life seriously--I would never consider not earning as decent a wage as I can, or not doing my job as well as I possibly can--but that seriousness needs to be balanced with fun and enjoyment and relaxation.  Our bodies and our hearts and our spirits all benefit from us enjoying ourselves, and it's not a good idea not to do so.

When I go to group things like picnics, I'm amazed at how quickly adults sit down to talk to each other about the same things they always talk to each other about.  Personally, I prefer to be with the kids who are playing at these events, because I don't want to hear the same old complaints about work and family and society in general.  I want to run and play tag and just be, along with a bunch of people who are also just being their authentic selves.  Who cares if they haven't been on this planet as long as I have?  They know how to have fun much better than the adults do.  I spend plenty of time being an adult--when I have a chance to have fun, I take it.

We've got to find time for fun--or make time for fun if it's not there now.  And fun doesn't have to be running around and playing.  I have a lot of fun reading, or watching an enjoyable show (even cartoons!), or baking, or going for nice walks.  Fun is relative, of course, but it's also necessary, and I hope that you're able to put more fun in your life--for your sake!

Let them be as they are

We need to promote greater tolerance and understanding
among the peoples of the world.  Nothing can be more
dangerous to our efforts to build peace and development
than a world divided along religious, ethnic or cultural lines.
In each nation, and among all nations, we must work
to promote unity based on our shared humanity.   -Kofi Annan


What a shame it is that we've become a nation filled with intolerant people.  We hate each other, we get angry at each other, we shame and mock each other, simply because we disagree about certain things, or we believe in certain things, or our skin happens to be of a different color than someone else's.  Sometimes it makes me sad, and sometimes it makes me sick to witness the terrible ways that we treat each other so often.

We must accept each other and help each other.  We have to cooperate with each other if we're going to improve our lives and our world.  We need to teach our young people to work with each other rather than fight against each other.  When we're intolerant, we're putting ourselves and our views and our beliefs on a pedestal and telling anyone who disagrees with us that they're wrong, even though the truth is that there's a good chance that we're the ones who are wrong.

What kind of world are we building to pass on to our young people if it's a world based on intolerance?  What are we teaching them when we model intolerant views and ideas?  How can we say that we love our fellow people when in practice we don't allow them to have their views and beliefs without judging them harshly for those views and beliefs?

Let's make this world a better place, and accept others for who they are without trying to change them, for what they believe without telling them they're wrong, for what they stand for without telling them that they should stand for something else.  Let's create a world of love and understanding rather than resentment and intolerance, for the sake of everyone.

Now

Begin doing what you want to do now.  We are not living
in eternity.  We have only this moment, sparkling like a
star in our hand. . . and melting like a snowflake.
Let us use it before it is too late.   -Marie Beynon Ray


I've been reading about living in the present moment for decades, and I'm still not sure that I know how to do so.  I think I do, but of course, there's no real test available to find out if I am or not.  After all, I may be enjoying the sunshine on a beautiful fall day, but if I'm worrying about something that may happen tomorrow, am I not fully grounded in the present?  Am I trapped in a future?

And if I'm on a run in the forest, but thinking about a problem that I had yesterday, am I being held prisoner by the past, or am I using the present moment to process thoughts and reactions that I had yesterday?  Sometimes, for me, thinking deeply about things helps me to work my way through issues, and perhaps I may not be seeing the trees that surround me, but I am dealing with stress and unease that threatens to overwhelm me.  Sometimes, this moment is meant to serve as a way to process the past.  Sometimes, this moment is meant as a way to prepare ourselves for the future.  Both are fine uses of the present moment, as long as we don't fall into the trap of allowing ALL of our present moments to be focused on the past or the future.

Because right now, I have the chance to compliment someone, to smile at someone, to experience the sunshine or the rain, to be fully aware of all that surrounds me.  It's an important part of life to be able and willing to be present in this moment, to appreciate the opportunities we have right here and right now--and even to take advantage of some of those opportunities from time to time.  It's actually being with the people who are near us, not on the phone with someone who's elsewhere, dealing with problems and issues that are elsewhere.

This moment is precious.  Who's around you right now?  What don't you know about that person or those people that you'd like to know?  Is there something beautiful to look at, even if you've seen it many times already?  What are your current opportunities to learn something new about something?  Let's not let this moment melt into nothingness without getting something from it--and giving something to it.

Our creativity

Creativity is simply the energy of
making something where there was
nothing before.  We do this every day,
in so many unmarked ways.
-Fran Sorin


"He's so creative," I often hear.  Unfortunately, I often hear those words followed by something like, "I could never do anything like that!"  And it's often young people who are making this claim, who are saying that they've already given up on creativity, that they feel that they aren't at all creative themselves, that creativity is somehow reserved for "special" people who have some sort of gift.

They're wrong, though.  They are creative.  They may not be painting landscapes that are hung in galleries, and they may not be making music that's played all over the world, but they have creative gifts that they can share with the world on many different levels, if they would only look and see what they're doing and how they're doing it.

I'm creative when I bake or cook dinner, when I play Scrabble with a friend, when I compliment someone, when I come up with a way to fix something, when I help a kid with a project, when I plan a menu for a dinner with friends.  I can even be creative in the ways that I show kindness and compassion to others, in the way that I write a letter or an email to a friend.  Simply smiling at someone and wishing them well can create a good feeling in that other person, a feeling that wasn't there before, and that's definitely a creative contribution to the world in a positive way.

Not all creativity is meant to be shared with others on a wide scale.  Much of our creativity is what we use to contribute to our world in small but important ways, and we're all creative.  Not all of the time, of course, but much more often than we give ourselves credit for.

Strength in humility

Humble people can do great things with uncommon perfection
because they are no longer concerned about their own interests
and their own reputation, and therefore they no longer need
to waste their efforts in defending them.    -Thomas Merton


Humility is a hard lesson to learn in life.  Most difficult, I believe, is learning about the power in humility to shape our lives, for most of us don't witness the humble person as being powerful, and we don't witness the same results for them that we witness in those people who have rejected humility.  The arrogant blowhard's outcomes are very easy to see; the humble person's achievements are cloaked in the humility that gives them the wonderful strength that they have, so they aren't all that visible, except to the most attentive.

The humble person, of course, doesn't ask for recognition.  If recognition comes, then this person doesn't bask in it, doesn't ask for more of it.  This person recognizes that life works through her or him, and that whatever she or he has accomplished has been a blessing.

That doesn't mean that we can't feel pride in our accomplishments--of course we can.  But when we're so prideful that we demand that others recognize our achievements as something special, then we definitely cannot count ourselves among the ranks of the humble.

I hope to be able to be humble, partly because it's a peaceful way of life, and partly because it's a much more powerful way to live life than being proud offers us.  The power in the humble person is true and steady, and not reliant on outside forces such as recognition.  The power of the humble person is a power that is used to help others, and it's a very effective power, indeed.

Sometimes not so common

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without
education than to have education without common sense.
-Robert Green Ingersoll


I can vouch for the veracity of this statement.  Having spent most of my adult life on college and university campuses, I've witnessed many, many people who have tons of education and very little common sense.  They're perplexed by many of the simple things in life, such as how to relate to the people around them, and focused almost exclusively on their disciplines, their research, and the papers that they're writing that they know very few people will read.  It's really kind of ironic that people with lots of education can write a 100-page dissertation or research paper, but can't fix the faucet in their kitchen sink when it needs to be changed, or get completely flustered when their car won't start in the morning and they have to find a different way to get to work.

I value common sense much more than I value my Ph.D.  The doctorate took a lot of time and effort, but the common sense helps me much more in my daily life and my relationships with other people.  Common sense has proved to be extremely important to me when I've faced certain obstacles, and it helps me a lot when I'm working with young people and looking for ways to get through to them.  It helps me decide how to create and use classroom assignments, and it helps me to come up with unique dinners when there's nothing in the cupboards that I really want to eat.

Work on your common sense, and you'll be working on a richer life.  Work on your education, and that's still extremely valuable.  The trick is not to give up common sense for book sense, for having the latter without the former is like wearing a raincoat every single day--even when it's not raining.

My happiness has grown up, too

The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a
particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change
its form. . . happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.
-Charles L. Morgan


The things that make me happy now tend to be very different from those things that used to make me happy when I was younger.  I feel very fortunate to be able to say this because I know many people who feel unhappy and dissatisfied with life because they're still trying to make themselves happy in the ways that used to make them happy, and those things just don't have the same effect any longer.

When I was much younger, I used to feel what I considered to be happiness when I bought certain things.  I used to feel happy when certain people paid attention to me, or even liked me.  I had been raised in a materialistic society that stressed acceptance by others as quite desirable, and so I grew up thinking I was happy when the things I had learned made happiness came to be.  Nowadays, though, such isn't the case.

These days, I'm happy waking up in the morning, looking out the window, and realizing that I have a safe place to live and food to eat.  I'm happy going for a walk and recognizing the fact that the trees are putting out oxygen and that I have fresh air to breathe and beautiful things to look at.  Many things that I love are completely unnecessary for my happiness--I love chocolate, but I don't need it to be happy.  I love my wife, but she and I have talked this over many times:  if one of us were to die tomorrow, then certainly we would go through grief, but we wouldn't necessarily become unhappy persons.

As I've grown up, my definition of happiness has changed, and it now allows for itself in situations that before would have been stressful or even frightening.  I don't put conditions on happiness any more, and that has made a huge difference in my life.  My happiness has grown up as I have, and it's a great feeling to have!  (Of course, this doesn't mean that many things of childhood can't still bring happiness--I still love doing many things that children do--but my happiness in that case is child-like, not childish!)