Creating a Garden--A Paragraph a Day

When the world wearies and society ceases
to satisfy there's always the garden.   -William Affleck


It's the gardening time of the year again, and this year we have a new garden to try to make our own, as we have a new home.  It's a nice way to spend our time because we're doing work that we enjoy to add value--sentimental value, mostly--to the home that we live in.  Not only is it nice to look out at the pretty flowers and plants, but it's also somewhat fulfilling to use our energy and creativity to make the garden look nice and even feel nice.  We're working to create something that is alive and that contributes something positive to the world, aesthetically and naturally.  We're helping to provide pollen for the bees and beauty for the eye, and we get to contribute to the world by helping something else to grow and to live.  And of course, it gives us a wonderful metaphor for life--making our own lives better by helping others.  Service to others is what can help us to make our own lives worthwhile--we enrich ourselves by helping others, be they human or animal or plant, and we can at the same time make the world a slightly better place for others, too.

I Miss Cooperation--A Paragraph a Day

Efforts to reach out and engage others in dialogue with the aim
of fostering mutual understanding and bringing people closer
together may seem ordinary and unexciting, but they in fact
constitute a bold and daring challenge to create
a new era of human civilization.   -Daisaku Ikeda
   
   
It's tempting to say that things used to be better, but I can't be sure.  I think they were, but there's so much that I don't know that it's impossible for me to know definitely.  It seems to me, though, that people used to cooperate with each other more often and better.  We used to value working together whether we agreed with each other politically or religiously or ethically or not--cooperation was much more important than any petty differences that we had with each other.  When we work together, we're able to share ideas and support one another, and the finished result is pretty much always superior to any results that we might achieve on our own.  But these days we see so many people who absolutely refuse to work with anyone who doesn't think as they do and believe as they do, and the result is that we're seeing very little being achieved compared to what we used to achieve.  We spend much less time thinking about how to help one another and much more time trying to bring each other down, and that's simply a recipe for disaster.  For me, myself, my hope is that I'll always do what I can to cooperate with others so that I can both help them to be better and allow them to help me to be better.

This, Too, Shall End--A Paragraph a Day

One thing that I've learned over and over again about life is that no matter how unpleasant certain situations may get, they will be over, either sooner or later.  I've had plenty of negative times, and I've gone through a lot of very difficult situations, but the truth is that eventually, they've all ended.  Today, as a somewhat superficial example, I was on a long bike ride.  After about three and a half hours, I hit a situation that I wasn't expecting--the road basically went away, replaced by a terribly rocky, unrideable surface that forced me to walk my bike.  It was a difficult stretch, and very frustrating and annoying.  But I knew that if I left the annoying part overwhelm me, I wouldn't have as much fun on my ride.  And I knew from experience that no matter how difficult things got at the time, I would still be at home within about an hour, so I might as well enjoy my surroundings and the fact that I was able to get out for a ride for most of the morning.  By looking on the positive side and keeping in mind that the negative part wouldn't last forever, I was able to enjoy the time that I spent outdoors, getting a good amount of exercise and fresh air.  As a metaphor, of course, I can apply this reality to other situations, no matter how difficult they may be.  Things pass, and we move on to something else--and I hope that I'm always able to see the brightest side of everything.

Being Myself--A Paragraph a Day

By being yourself, you put something wonderful
in the world that was not there before.   -Edwin Elliot

Who am I?  How can I be myself when I'm in a society that asks me to be like everyone else?  When I teach, my evaluations have more to do with whether or not I'm doing the same things that all teachers are expected to do.  Gone are the days of academic freedom, of following your own muse and your own instincts.  Now the job is formulaic and teachers are expected to follow the formula faithfully.  Other jobs are very similar.  To be in certain clubs or organizations--including religions, of course--one must think and believe the same things as others.  So it makes it difficult to be ourselves sometimes, difficult to follow our own paths and be true to ourselves without compromising the integrity of our selves, of who we truly are in our depths.  I'm not sure that I know who I am exactly, but one thing that I'm sure of is that I'm going to do my best to put something positive and uplifting into the world that wouldn't be here if I weren't here to do my thing--not somebody else's thing, and not the thing that I'm told or expected to do.

Summer Break--A Paragraph a Day

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

The Songs of Birds--A Paragraph a Day

There are very few things that to me are more pleasant to hear than the songs of birds.  And that seems quite strange, as the birds aren't singing to entertain or impress anyone with their musical ability--they're just doing what they do, and it sounds very nice to most of us.  Of course, you get your crows and ravens that make a less pleasant sound or two, but all in all the songs of birds are a beautiful part of life.  This fact gets me thinking, though, about the people I know.  What about their songs?  Am  listening closely to their songs and appreciating them?  Do they perhaps have songs as beautiful as those of the birds, but I can't hear them because I've pre-judged the people?  Perhaps because I don't expect beautiful songs from everyone, I don't hear many of the songs that could be absolutely wonderful.  I love to hear the birds singing, and perhaps there are many songs from many people that I could love just as much.  I'm going to try to keep my ears open and to hear the songs that so far I've been deaf to, songs that may enrich my life in ways that I can't even imagine now.  The birds do it all the time for me, and maybe it's time that I allow the people all around me to do so also.

Naps--A Paragraph a Day

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