Living Life Fully’s Daily Pick-Me-Up

I’ve spent much of my life being a reactive person.  I’ve done many things in my life that were directly caused by someone else’s actions, rather than my own inner guidance concerning what I should or shouldn’t do.  In other words, my actions weren’t really actions at all, but reactions.  And usually, they’ve been pretty negative from the very start, as I never really gave myself a chance to consider carefully what I truly wanted to do.  I’ve hurt other people with my words and actions, and I’ve caused stress and strife for others.  Not tons of it, but more than I would have liked.

One of the most important things that I’ve learned in life is to stop reacting to other people’s actions and words and inaction.  I’ve become much better at just watching and not trying to fix things or make them better or to defend myself when no defense is really needed.  Now that I consider my actions more carefully (usually, of course–I’m still not there completely!), I’m able to act in ways that I truly see as fit and appropriate.  And as my actions are more carefully considered, I don’t do things that stress me out or that cause me negative results.  And my life is much freer and easier when I’m not going along complicating it with my poor reactions.

We can see a really good analogy in sports when it comes to penalties.  If a player does something dirty and hits another player, and that player retaliates, guess who gets called for the penalty?  Almost always, it’s the person who reacts with retaliation.  This is a purely reactive response, and it has negative results for the person who has reacted.  There are penalties involved that hurt the entire team, not just the one player, and that never is a good thing.

So if someone does something that I see as negative to me, how do I react?  Or, a better question is, do I even react at all?  I’ve come to learn over time that most negative actions are due to someone else’s poor self-esteem or lack of confidence, and most reactions don’t really accomplish much of anything at all.  By not reacting, I can choose to let something lie, to allow the water to calm down rather than stirring it up anew with my own negative response.

Recently someone criticized something that I had done, and I was kind of stymied by what she said.  My first impulse was to be defensive–to say something back to her that would make her feel bad for what she had said.  Instead, I waited a few moments to gather my thoughts, and then I asked her, “What makes you say that?”  It turned out that she had completely misunderstood what I had done, and was reacting to what she thought I had done rather than what I really had done.  I was glad that I hadn’t followed my first impulse to react, for taking the time to think of an appropriate action (asking for clarification) had helped us both to get much more out of the situation, and we didn’t harbor any ill feelings towards each other.

I’m not quite sure where I learned to be defensive rather than productive, but I really am happy that it’s something that I seem to be outgrowing.  Life’s much more fun and much less stressful when we consider our actions carefully, without letting others push us into reactions that we may not feel too good about later.

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I really refuse to be pessimistic about our future.  It’s easy to see the world darkly and act like things are going to get much worse before they get better, and that may even be true, but I don’t believe that the world is in as bad of shape as most people seem to think it is.  And I say this because I know a lot of young people, the very people that adults like to characterize as selfish, lazy, self-indulgent, immoral, and many other things; and what I see in these young people is hope, the hope for a better world, for these people, young and immature as they may be, are very good people.

Most young people these days are facing many more challenges than us older folks ever had to deal with.  Most of the kids in school are expected to know much more than we ever knew, and they’re held to standards of behavior that we never were held to (no matter how much we like to claim that the opposite is true).  These young people are afraid, just as we were, they’re doubtful about their own power and beauty and abilities, just as we were, and they’re dealing with emotional and mental and physical problems, just as we were.  When we see them in bad moments–which is usually when most adults notice them–it’s easy to generalize and say just how much worse things are today than they used to be.  But that’s simply not true.

I watch young people involved in sports who play with intensity and who work very hard at what they do, and who play with great integrity and high levels of sportsmanship.  I see young people work hard to improve their math or science or writing skills, even when the subject may be difficult for them.  I see them asking important questions as they try to discover their own ways through life and living, as they try to define their own worlds for themselves.  I see young people displaying compassion and creativity and love and caring in ways that we never dared when we were their age, and I’m very impressed with most of what I see.

This all comes from working closely with them.  If I didn’t do so, then I’d probably see only the negative stuff that gets on the news, the stuff that makes us feel bad about other human beings, that makes us feel that the adults of the future will be selfish and violent and self-centered.  But I’m blessed to be in a situation in which I get to work with young people very closely, and I feel very fortunate that this is the case.  Because in them I can see that the better parts of humanity are not skipping over this new generation–the kids may not be completely comfortable expressing what they know to be true to us adults or even to other young people, but they do have within them the most beautiful traits of humanity, and when I see it shine through I know that the future of the human race is a bright future, and that the spirits that have been in this world for less time than others will mature into great people of whom we’ll be proud, and into whose hands we can trust the future of the human race.  Do you feel a bit hopeless about the future now and then?  Well, don’t–the kids of today have much more potential for love and compassion than we ever did, for our generation is teaching them many of the things that the generations before ours neglected to teach us.  And these kids are learning the lessons well, even if we’re not able to see the results in ways that are as direct as we’d like to see them.  So have faith, and smile–the future is bright, and while there will be the inevitable potholes along the way, the youth of today will overcome them and build a better world than we could even imagine.  I’m sure of it.

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It’s hard to believe sometimes just how quickly time goes by when we get busy.  I’ve been neglecting this project for almost a month now, due to other responsibilities that have come up to take more or my time than I thought they would.  The girls’ basketball season has started, and since I’m coaching I’m spending a lot more time at school than I was before.  It’s very gratifying work, though, and I’m enjoying it a lot.  It also seems to me to be very important work, something that I certainly don’t want to do only half-way.

But that brings me here, to the first post of November.  I’m back to work on this project now, which is also very important to me.  And since it’s titled “Pick-Me-Up,” it’s important that I continue to add uplifting material to this site.

I kind of have to ask myself sometimes, though, whether or not something like a pick-me-up is always appropriate or justified.  There are so many negative things going on in the world that sometimes positive messages just seem to be a bit out of place.  And there are so many motivational speakers, authors, teachers, and others that one voice may be a waste of time–may be lost in the tumult of people’s individual lives.  After all, so many people are going through so many difficult times that a few positive words simply can’t be all that effective, can they?

I guess this question brings up another question:  should we not do something because of just how ineffective it may be?  Shall I keep my positive words to myself just because they may be ineffective?  Shall I stay silent because other people may ignore the words that I have to say?

If I do so, then I’ve most certainly done something very negative to myself.  If I feel called to share positive words, then I should share them, and damn the consequences or results.  As long as I know that I’m not going to cause any harm, then I should follow my muse, follow my own inspiration, and share what I feel called to share.

This question has been one of the reasons for my silence.  I started this blog with a lot of enthusiasm, but as with any venture I allowed doubts to enter my mind.  And as I got very busy, the doubts became stonger as my resolve grew less dominant in my mind.  It became easy for me to neglect this opportunity to share words with others when I had other things to do, and I did just that–I neglected it.  But now I stand corrected, having corrected myself–these words are important, and they do have a place in the world, even if nobody else ever reads them.  If I feel called, then I’m being true to myself by following that calling.

So I’ve learned a lesson, and I hope that I can apply that lesson to my life and not allow myself to have such doubts again.  Or push away those doubts when they surface.  My callings are my callings, and the responses–or lack of response–of other people should have nothing to do with my decisions.  I hope that in the future, they’ll have much less effect on what I think or do with my own life.

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