Archive | April, 2015

The White Board

25 Apr

You know those white boards you see everywhere now? The ones with the dry erase markers that people sometimes goof up by writing on with permanent markers? At work, when a new project comes up, the meeting room we sit in to discuss it always has a white board. Generally it’s clean and ready to use, ready to record our brilliant ideas, our best plans, and all the other things that might work, or might fail as we go forward. It’s pleasing to see the clean, blank board, and it’s inspiring to think of what we’ll put on it.

What if we thought of every new day as a clean white board ready to record every thing we do that day? It’s pristine, perfectly blank, and we can decide what we want to put on it. However, we must record everything we do, so we should probably be careful about our choices. In the morning we get up, get dressed, have something to eat – we can put all that on it. Those are fairly innocuous, and don’t require much thought. But after we record those, we start making decisions. If we get angry – it goes on the board. If we are kind – it goes on the board. If we do well or if we fail – it goes on the board. At the end of the day, how will we feel when we look at all the entries we made for that day? Will we cringe at some of the decisions we now have to face? Will we feel good about the choices we made? It all depends on what we do.

The great thing about our lives is no matter what we put on the board today, before tomorrow morning comes, it’ll all be erased. The board will once again be clean and blank, and ready to record a new day. Yes, there may be some developments from the decisions we made the day before, but those decisions have already been written down and are gone. Now only our reactions, or the repercussions from them are what we will record going forward. In reality, each day of our lives is just like this. No matter what we did yesterday, or last week, last month or last year, today is a new day. We can change our course. We can make other decisions. We can choose a new path. We can eliminate things that have gone wrong in the past. We can design a new future. Every day, the board is clean, and we start again.

Today think about your white board. What will you put on it? Will you be happy when you review it later tonight? How will you change it tomorrow? Pay attention to your decisions, remembering that even though you may not really be recording them on a white board, you are definitely recording them in your life history. Choose well. We can change the future, but the past is set in stone. Make sure, as you go forward, yours looks the way you want it to.

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Tuck and Roll

24 Apr

When something terrible happens in our lives, something really bad that takes our breath away, something that shocks us, and frightens us, our initial response to coping with it might be to push it out of our minds, and refuse to think about it. That way we believe we can handle the pain. Initially it may seem like a good idea. It really hurts to think about it, and it would follow that not thinking about it would be better. So we close it off, set it aside, tuck it away behind a door in our minds. We determine that we will think about it later. Later, when we’re stronger. Later, when we’re ready. It’ll still be there, and we’ll look at it then. And who knows, maybe by then it won’t hurt so much.

It’s the old “tuck and roll” technique. You tuck it away, and roll on to something else. Unfortunately, the moment we tuck the problem away, it becomes frozen in time. It does not change, it does not morph into something easier to look at, it does not go away. It stays exactly as it was the moment we decided to ignore it. And the catch is that those problems we’ve put aside tend to get impatient if we don’t go back to them. Before long they remind us they are there. They pop up into our thoughts, and they peak into our dreams. And when they do, they still hurt because we’ve done nothing to cope with them. All we’ve done is try to forget them. And that never works.

Unfinished business is unfinished. We are not done with it, and it will remain unfinished, and continue to prick us until we garner the courage to address it. It becomes a weight that holds us down, a broken shoe that slows us up, and a stop sign in our progress. If we want to go forward, we have to go back. We have to open the door all the way, we have to open our eyes and see the problem, and we have to face the situation completely. It may hurt. It may hurt a lot, but if we want to let it go, first we have to let it come. We have to let the pain roll over us. We have to face it head on, face all our fears, and all our doubts, and stand up to it. Only after that can we finally let it go.

The biggest, heaviest, most destructive wave in the ocean can only break on the shore one time. And then it’s gone. The issues we’ve been afraid to face are the same way. They may hurt us when we let them roll over us, but if we face them, they will only hurt us once, and then we can begin to heal. The wave will have passed. There is nothing that will come to us in this life that we cannot face. Stand up. Stand strong. Open the door. Let everything out. And then, after the wave, take a breath and start again. Let it go. You’ll feel lighter, calmer, happier, and stronger afterward. It’s just a door after all. Open it.

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Oh snap!

23 Apr

Have you ever made a snap judgment that was way off the mark? Probably you have. Probably we all have. And I have as well. Some time ago, I was in a gas station store getting a soda. That particular store had a lot of gambling options, lots of scratch off tickets for sale, several lottery tickets, and other options. There was a man at the counter buying all kinds of those items, and I remember thinking he was just throwing his money away. An older woman, and what looked like her young granddaughter came into the store, and the little girl was chanting, “We want five dollars on number 4! We want five dollars on number 4!” I thought she was talking about one of the gambling options, and I was disgusted to think the grandmother was teaching this young child about that. Imagine my shame when I heard the little girl go to the counter and ask for five dollars worth of gas on pump number four. I felt horrible. Why did I jump to such a sad conclusion without any facts to back it up? I don’t normally judge others this way, and I felt so ashamed. I looked out the window and noticed their car was a big old gas guzzler, and seeing it, I realized that five dollars wasn’t going to go very far but may have been all they could afford. In order to somehow redeem myself for judging them so inappropriately, I went to the counter and paid the cashier to add additional fuel to their pump. Then I walked outside and said hello to the woman. I told her I had paid for some extra gas for them, and I hoped it would help. She was so grateful, and thanked me profusely – which I have to say, just made me feel worse. I told her it was my pleasure, to have a nice day, and I left. I remember driving away feeling so ashamed that I had made such an awful mistake, and humbled to realize I needed to change.

I have never forgotten that experience. Why was I so quick to judge that day? Why did I assume the worst? I have no idea. But whatever the reason was, it was wrong. We never really know what is going on in someone else’s life. We don’t know their personal circumstances, we don’t know their struggles, we don’t know if they’re happy or sad, and we certainly don’t know what decisions they are making. Making snap judgments based on little or no facts, and just on our (sometimes flawed) perceptions, is simply wrong. We just don’t have the whole story, and until we know all the facts, it’s impossible to understand anything.

That woman at the gas station will never know what was going on inside my head that day. She didn’t know that my gift of gas was really penance for a bad choice. If you have made this sort of judgment yourself, take heart, it’s not permanent, and you can change. Today as you’re going through your ups and downs, and you see those around you doing whatever it is they are doing, remember that what you see might not be what is happening at all. We never have all the facts until others give them to us. Be careful with your judgments. Don’t make assumptions based on half a conversation, an overheard statement, a surprise action or anything else. Don’t assume anything. Wait for the facts. That day at the gas station was a humbling experience for me. I won’t forget it. But remembering when we falter is a blessing. It helps us correct our courses, and if we listen, can teach us to be better. Today is a new day. Don’t snap. You could be wrong.

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Playing Patty Cake

22 Apr

How honest are we in our relationships with our family, our friends, our co-workers, and our acquaintances? Do we ever pretend that things are better than they really are? Do we look the other way instead of facing a difficult situation, and hope it will just fade away? Do we just smile and laugh it off when we’ve been offended? If we do, we’re playing patty cake. You know that game that children play. Just like that game, when we pretend that things are different than they really are, when we look the other way, and ignore difficult situations instead of solving them, and instead of facing them head on, we are playing a game. Sometimes we bring others into the game, especially in our families. There’s crazy Uncle Louie who lies every time he opens his mouth, but nobody ever says anything. There’s mean Aunt Louise who talks about every relative behind their backs, and everyone just ignores her. And there’s that cousin whose mother dotes on him like he’s an angel, and once her back is turned he steals cash out of her purse. Everyone knows he does it – his mother even knows he does it, but it would be too unpleasant to address, so everyone looks the other way. Keep the peace. Don’t rock the boat. Play patty cake. This might work for a while but eventually, the truth comes out, and despite the denial, the problems have to be faced.

Maybe you know a family that does this. Maybe you do this. Maybe it’s been going on for years. Everything is smoke and mirrors. Everything is orchestrated to avoid the truth, to deny the reality of anything unpleasant. In this situation, it’s impossible to be honest. People who play patty cake often can’t keep their promises. They always have an excuse. Despite that, often they are the ones who are always telling others how great their life is, how perfect their family is, how wonderful they are. Of course, if you never look at anything negative, if you never face the truth, you can make up any sort of life you want. If you believed what they say, you would think they were perfection personified. The greatest that ever lived.

But they aren’t. They are dysfunctional, and they are in denial. They are living a lie. If we pretend things are different than they really are, we are not living a real life. It’s all make believe. If we don’t face our lives as they really are, we aren’t living our lives as they really are. We are living in a dream state, a pretend existence. Nothing is real.

If we want to be happy, really happy, we have face life as it really is. We have to face the truth, even if it hurts, even if it’s unpleasant, even if it’s hard. If we face the truth no matter what it is, and let go of the illusions, in the end we will find more joy, and happiness, and we’ll be genuinely at peace. What could be better? So today, if you find yourself thinking about playing patty cake to get through a difficult situation, stop, and think again. You can handle whatever comes your way by being honest, and straightforward. And when you’re on the other side of the problem, you’ll be happy knowing you faced it instead of looking the other way. It’s the only way to live if you want to be happy. And we all want that don’t we?

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Do you feel that?

21 Apr

There are currently over seven billion people in the world. Seven billion – that’s an enormous number. It’s hard to grasp a number that big but that’s where we are. Over seven billion of us sharing time and space on one planet. It’s impossible to see all the people, meet them all, get to know them, and learn about them. There are just too many of us and the world is very big. If you started traveling today, and traveled every single day of your life from here forward, you could still never get to every place there is to go.

Our lives encircle a very small percentage of the world population. We have friends, and family, work associates, professional contacts, and the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. And even with our smaller group it’s sometimes hard to realize that we are all connected in some way. The human race is an amazing thing. So many differences, yet so many similarities. We all need food, shelter, air, companionship, and generally we all want love, support, kindness, and caring. There really isn’t that much difference between us despite the geographic boundaries and cultural norms.

I began to realize how much more connected we are than I had thought some time ago when an acquaintance died unexpectedly. I didn’t know him that well, but I found myself grieving and sad. My friends who were close to him were heartbroken, and that made me feel even sadder. I wanted to comfort them, I wanted to comfort his family whom I had never met, and I wanted to help them all. I really didn’t know these people, and I wondered at my concern for them. Why do we have this empathy, this ability to share one another’s feelings? As I thought about it, I remembered other times in my life when people had been sad, or happy, joyous or desperate, and I realized that during those times I, too, felt those emotions with them. Why would I feel so much for situations in which I was not involved? Because the people around me, these other human beings, are part of me. In essence, we’re all really part of the same family.

Think about your life. Haven’t there been times when you were going through something difficult, and a stranger said something to cheer you up? Do you remember times when you saw someone else struggling, someone you didn’t know, and felt like you wanted to help? What about all of those examples of families, towns, churches, and cities that have gone through terrible disasters, and people from all over the country came to their aide. It happens all the time. Why do we do this? We don’t know those people? Why do we care?

We care because our connections to one another are far deeper than we realize. There is a constancy between us all, like a silent, ongoing hum that never leaves us, that is always there, that we don’t hear, but continually feel. That’s how we are as people. We are connected. We laugh when others laugh, we cry when others cry, we rejoice when others rejoice, and we grieve when others grieve. It was meant to be this way. It’s the way it has to be. We need each other. We need to know that we matter, and we need to let others know that they matter too.

Today as you go about your details, your busy life, your responsibilities, your errands, your commitments, and everything else you have to do, think about your connection to those around you. Listen for that familiar hum – that silent link that never leaves you. Listen. You’ll hear it, not with your ears, but with your heart. And if you see someone laughing, join them. If you see someone crying, comfort them. Everyone around you is your brother and sister. Keep your family strong. They need you and you need them. Today make it a point to remember that.

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