Living Life Fully’s Daily Pick-Me-Up

I just finished taking a class of high school students through the book Dances with Wolves, exploring the changes through which the main character passes in the course of the narrative.  The most fascinating thing about making our way to the end of the novel, though, was realizing just how strongly the novel explored the concept of identity, and the idea that perhaps the identities that we were born with and raised under aren’t necessarily our true identities.

In the novel, Dunbar is an Army lieutenant, but he’s a man who never has felt a part of anything.  He’s always considered himself to be an outsider, someone who doesn’t belong.  When he finally “becomes” Comanche, though, he finds his true identity, and he feels authentic for the first time in his life.  It’s not that he’s rejecting what he was, but more like he has reached an important place in his life towards which he had been traveling a very long time.

How long do most of us hold on to the identities that we’re born and raised with?  How many people do you know who would fight to the death to maintain the identities with which they feel the most comfortable?

Could it be, though, that our true, authentic identities lie elsewhere than we think they do?  Is it possible that one of our purposes in life could be to find out, to discover, who we truly are inside, as opposed to what we’ve been taught we are (which very often is more like what someone else wants us to be)?  For example, I’ve always considered myself to be a college teacher, but now that I’m teaching high school for the first time, I find myself very comfortable there.  So which am I–a college teacher, or a high school teacher?

The students really appreciated the idea that this man found his identity in something that previously had been outside of himself.  They appreciated the fact that he had an open enough mind just to consider that there might be much to learn and appreciate in the Comanche way of life, as opposed to the other white men of his time who thought that Indians were simply savages who should be exterminated.  They appreciated the fact that he had enough presence of mind to see clearly who treated him as a human being, and who treated him as just another soldier.

What is your identity?  It’s not an easy question to answer if we think it through carefully.  We can learn a lot, though, from the novelist if we think that our identities may be somewhere other than where we think they are–who we are is inside of us, and our authentic selves may fit better in different contexts than the ones we’ve been taught they should fit in.  If we keep our eyes and hearts open, we may someday find the places and the people we’re meant to be with, and it may surprise us a great deal to find out who and where that is!

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Why should I try hard today, when none of my efforts so far have produced the results I’ve sought?

Because I never know what tomorrow will bring, and whether my latest effort will be my most effective.  Perhaps my efforts so far have been in vain because I’ve been looking in the wrong directions for outcomes, but my latest efforts will be in the right direction.

Why should I continue to pray when I don’t see results to my prayers?

Because I never know when is the right time for my prayers to be answered–they’ll be answered in God’s best time, not my desired time.

Why should I keep searching for answers when I haven’t found the ones I want yet?

Because I never know when the next rock I turn over, the next hole that I dig, or the next door that I open may reveal the answers I’ve been searching for for so long.

Why should I keep being nice to people when they so often treat me poorly?

Because I never know when I’ll meet the person I fall in love with, or the one who becomes a best friend or a mentor, or the one who may have some very important answers for me.

The fact is, you never know when something’s going to happen.  You never know when your efforts will be rewarded.  And because we never know these things, we need to keep living from our hearts, not allowing frustration to get the best of us, so that we can continue to live authentically and happily.  There are many things that I would have loved to have happened by now, but they haven’t.  But I don’t give up on them, for I never know when all of my efforts (or all of my letting go) finally will have the effect they’re supposed to have and open doors for me that beforehand were closed.  If I give up now, after all, I’ll never know what I missed. . . .

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Sometimes on this road of life, we face some pretty rough traveling.  There are times when the road is full of potholes or ice heaves or even small fault lines, and we have to pay very close attention to where we’re going and what we’re doing so that we don’t hit the potholes and do some damage to our vehicles–or in other words, ourselves.

What makes the difference in the trip, though, is how we respond to the potholes.  We can sit in our cars and complain about them because they make the trip more difficult, or we can be grateful for them because they force us to be more aware of our surroundings.  And let’s face it–potholes or not, at least there’s a road that will take us where we want to get to, isn’t there?

I know many people who would do nothing but complain about the potholes, threatening to write letters to congresspersons and Department of Transportation people.  All they seem to be able to focus on are the obstacles, even when they’re successful in avoiding them.

I know other people who just look at a pothole as a normal part of life.  “At least I didn’t hit it,” they say, and immediately forget that the thing even exists, focused on the next part of their journey.

The former people tend to be unhappy and miserable, always looking for the next thing to be upset about.

The latter tend to be pretty content with their lives and the way that they’re living them.

It’s a pretty easy call for me to say which group I’d rather be a part of.  So I work really hard at minimizing my complaining, looking for the positive in the situations of my life instead of the negative things.  So far, I find that this strategy pays excellent dividends, for I find myself feeling at peace, calm, and aware of my surroundings.  It’s a much more pleasant way to go through life, and I really would like to go through life in as pleasant a way as possible.  I know that bad times will come, but when my choice is involved, then I’d much rather see potholes as simple parts of life rather than as major annoyances that make me lose my peace of mind.

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I’ve worked with a lot of students who have a hard time getting work done.  Most of the time, I find, their problem isn’t simply that it’s difficult for them to get the work done–they actually have a hard time getting started in the first place.  I’ve met many students–and people in other situations–who have such a hard time getting started that they almost never get anything done.  And usually, I find, they have a hard time getting started because they’ve psyched themselves out to believe that they can’t do a good job in the first place–so why even start?

Sometimes it can be attributed to an extreme sense of perfectionism–if what I do isn’t going to be perfect anyway, then why even do it?  What these people don’t want to hear is that almost no one’s work is perfect–and most people are willing to do the best they can, even if it isn’t the best job in the world.  In real life, the best we can do is almost always adequate, and very often much more than adequate.  But the people who don’t begin rob themselves of the ability to learn this lesson.

Sometimes people don’t begin because they constantly shift their focus to something else, either out of disinterest or fear.  Sometimes it simply grows too late to start, and they miss important deadlines.  Sometimes they resent having to do the job in the first place, so they’ll show the person who assigned it to them!

I’ve found in my life, though, that the most important step I can take in anything is that first step.  Once I have that behind me, I can almost always find the road all the way along, even when it goes in directions that I never anticipated.  That first step provides me with motion, with inertia, and maintaining motion always is easier than creating it–that’s simply a fact of physics.

What in your life is waiting for that first step from you?  Your first step doesn’t need to be perfect, and it doesn’t even need to be in the right direction.  It simply needs to be a first step, one that will get you started, and one that will make that second step–and the third and fourth–easier.  I’ve got a few first steps of my own that need to be taken, and I think that I’m going to take the time right now to decide what they’re going to be, and when I’ll take them.  Some things just have to be done, don’t they?

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I knew some people a while ago who wanted to do something new and different–specifically, move to a new state and attend college there.  There was a problem, though–the change scared them.  The idea of picking up and moving, of leaving behind everything they knew, kept them from fulfilling their dream for over two years.  Finally, though, they did make the leap and moved.  I saw them yesterday, and both are thriving in their new situation, doing extremely well in school and enjoying the lives that they’ve made for themselves in their new location.

I worked with a woman once whose husband was laid off after almost thirty years at his job.  They were shocked when it happened, as there weren’t too many other possibilities for work in their area for people of his age with his type of experience.  They didn’t let it get them down, though–instead, they decided to live out one of their dreams.  They sold their home and moved elsewhere, where the sun shines more and the dreary days occur very infrequently compared to where they had lived.  He found work and she opened her own business, and both ended up being quite happy in their new homes.

Change is frightening, but there are literally millions of stories of people who took the risk to change something important in their lives because they knew in their hearts that the change was best for them, and who were truly glad that they had taken the risk.  Change is one of the most important constants in life, if we allow it to be so.  So many people spend so much time fighting change, though, that it often seems like it’s something to fear, and many of us buy into that idea and avoid change at all costs.

I like to change little things in my life as much as I can.  I like to change big things, too, for every time I ever have made a big change, I’ve found great treasures in the results.  I’ve met new people and had new experiences and learned new things that I never could have learned in a previous situation, and after all, isn’t that why we’re here–to learn all we can about life and living and love and our fellow human beings?

Are there any changes that you’ve been putting off because of fear?  Not all changes are meant to happen immediately, and often it is better to wait.  But if the only reason for waiting is fear, then it’s doubtful that the waiting is going to be all that beneficial to you.  I would never tell anyone that they have to make changes in their lives, or that they should make changes, but I would encourage everyone to examine their motives for avoiding change.  And then, if the motives just don’t add up to something that’s contributing positively to your life, perhaps it is time to take the risk and make the changes that your heart is crying out for.

Anatole France

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I’ve always been amazed at how much value we put on things like gold and diamonds.  It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me to value them so highly–after all, they’re just stones and metal.  They can’t really do anything for us except shine, and without light they’re pretty useless, aren’t they?

What’s more precious than diamonds or gold?  That’s easy–you are!  After all, you can comfort me when things have gone badly and I need to hear some words of encouragement.  A diamond would just sit there, with no compassion, no love, no kindness.

You can make me feel better just by giving me a smile.  I’ve never seen a diamond smile.  Sparkle, maybe, but that’s nothing compared to your smile and the light in your eyes when you do smile.

Your friendship is very special to me because you accept me just as I am, faults and all.  Gold doesn’t really care who I am–in fact, it doesn’t have the capacity to think at all.

I love the way that you listen to me–it makes me feel special to know that someone cares enough to hear what I have to say.  No precious stone can hear what I have to say, nor can it care about what I do say.

You are about as precious as anything gets.  You are completely unique and very beautiful, even if your particular beauty isn’t the type that’s admired by the majority of the human beings on the planet (but just what does the majority know?!).  Your thoughts are yours, your words are yours, your pain and your passions are yours alone.  And the value that they hold is truly immeasurable.  I can measure a gold in troy ounces, and I can measure a diamond in karats.  I cannot measure your heart, and I can’t measure your love.  They’re simply beyond measurement.

It’s funny what we value.  We can work for years to earn enough money to buy a diamond ring for a loved one, but not work a second to make ourselves better people who will learn how to treat that loved one better.  You deserve that better treatment.  You deserve the best–because you’re one of the most precious things on this planet.  An immortal spirit spending time in a body, learning to love and to cherish and to treat others with dignity and respect.

Really, no diamond, no gold, can come close to holding a candle to you!

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I think it’s a mistake to define youth as simply having fewer years than others.  Youth has to do more with our state of mind, our way of seeing the world, and our way of receiving what the world has to offer us than anything else.  Most very young people aren’t even aware enough of what they have to take advantage of their youth, so I think it’s time that we start looking at youth as something that we are, something that we grow into as we move along in life.

Youth is yours, if you want it.  It’s in the way that you feel a sense of awe and wonder when you see a rainbow or hear the song of a bird.  It’s in the way you laugh when you hear something funny, or how your eyes tear up when you see or hear something sad.  Your youth is in the way you wake up, with enthusiasm and energy, ready to take on the world–which is easily something you can train yourself to do, even if you have stopped waking up that way.  Youth is in the way you trust others with your secrets and the way you’re proud of your flower collection or your scrapbook.  Your youth is simply a part of who you are, and while it’s possible to allow your youth to grow into a magnificent, wondrous part of yourself if you hang on to it and continue to nurture it, most of us leave it behind when we have a few more years under our belts, and we neglect it and refuse to nurture it.

Your youth, though, is a very special part of who you are.  Don’t leave it behind.  You don’t have to be a kid to be young, and some of the youngest people I’ve ever known have spent quite a few decades on this planet.  Love your youth, and feed it constantly with the beauty and wonder of the world and the people you know, and one day you’ll find that when Jesus was talking about being as a child, he wasn’t simply speaking in metaphors.  Live youthful, think youthful, and stay youthful.  It’s completely up to you.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living.  In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage, and power from people and from God, so long are you young.

Samuel Ullman

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Sometimes I have to ask myself this question, because I often feel that instead of growing, I’m somehow stagnating, continuing to do the same things over and over in the same ways.  Life is about change, though, so those of us who continue to do things in the same ways all the time are in a way avoiding real life, avoiding the very things that can help us to grow and to change and to learn more about this wonderful world and our wonderful selves.

I do believe that we often expect too much growth out of ourselves.  We expect ourselves to be like annual flowers, growing from nothing but a tiny seed to a large flowering plant in a matter of weeks.  The truth is, though, that most of us are made to be like trees that take their time in growing, adding an inch or two to their height and width per year–in their good years.  I don’t want to be too impatient and try to force myself to be something that I’m not, but on the other hand I don’t want to lose the opportunities that I have for growth in very real senses.

I try to keep tabs on whether I’m improving or not–improving my mind and my heart, improving my compassion and love and peace of mind.  I try to monitor myself to see if I am growing steadily so that when I see that I’m not, I can take steps to remedy that situation.  It’s not like I’m putting pressure on myself to grow faster than I’m able to grow–but I most definitely am trying to make sure that some growth is occurring, even if it’s happening in ways that I didn’t foresee, or ways that I don’t completely understand.

Are you growing?  Are you putting yourself in situations in which you’re well nurtured and well cared for so that you can grow?  If you really do want to get more out of the world than you are getting now, then you need to make sure that you continue growing over time so that you can take advantage of the opportunities that are there for you.  After all, the larger a tree grows, the more leaves it has to catch sunshine, and the more roots it puts out to capture the water it needs to live.

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I heard a line in a song today about waiting for eternity, or preparing for arriving in eternity.  The gist of the message was that once this life is over, we become eternal beings, and we somehow enter into eternity.  I wanted to tell the singer not to wait, because eternity’s never going to arrive, and we’re never going to “enter into” eternity even after we die.  The simple fact of the matter is that eternity is going on right now.  Eternity is here, and it always has been.  There’s no way really to step out of eternity, for we’re completely immersed in it, our entire lives long.

A concept like eternity really doesn’t allow for a beginning and an end.  It always is, always has been, and always will be.  So it makes little sense to be “preparing ourselves for our eternal afterlives,” as some religions teach us we should be doing.  You and I are already in eternity, and we’re living eternal lives right now.

I love the idea that we are eternal beings experiencing a short experience on this planet as human beings.  We aren’t mortal creatures longing for eternity, but eternal creatures here for a while.  We are not our bodies, but our spirits–the bodies simply allow us to experience humanity in its earthly form.

I don’t claim to know what forms we take in our eternal essence.  I’ve forgotten that.  But I do know that as eternal beings, we were somewhere.  Wordsworth wrote that “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;/The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,/Hath had elsewhere its setting,/And cometh from afar:/Not in entire forgetfulness,/And not in utter nakedness,/But trailing clouds of glory do we come/From God, who is our home:/Heaven lies about us in our infancy!”  And I feel very strongly that he was right.

So look about yourself.  Recognize the eternal aspect of everything in your sight, and recognize the eternal elements of who you truly are.  Get to know yourself on an eternal level, and you’ll start to see the many wonderful gifts that we’ve been given with which to enjoy this experience here as much as you can.  You are eternal, and eternity is right now–it always has been, and it always shall be.

Our creator would never have made such lovely days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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I’ve often heard the question:  If you were to die today, what kind of legacy would you leave behind?

I prefer to ask myself another question, though:  Because I know that I’m going to die someday, what am I going to contribute to my legacy today?

There are many things that we can contribute to life today.  Encouraging, teaching, helping, giving, sharing, loving, smiling, being patient. . . . none of these are all that difficult to do, and all of them can leave a positive mark on the lives of other people with whom we share this planet.

Our legacy doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with money or major contributions to charities.  Perhaps our legacies won’t have anything to do with money at all.  Perhaps I’ll be remembered as a person who helped others to push ahead in life simply through encouragement and teaching.  Maybe people will remember me as someone who gave of his time and energy to help others reach their goals and make their lives more fulfilling.

And perhaps I won’t be remembered at all.  But that’s okay, too–some of the most important legacies of all never shall be recognized as the valuable contributions to our world that they are.  This is often the case with people who have devoted themselves to being loving, compassionate parents, or people who have worked their whole lives long behind the scenes, never getting or taking credit for what they do.

But the bottom line is this:  In order to make my legacy what I’d like it to be, I must work at it, help it to grow, and continue to contribute to it.  So what can I do today to add to my legacy?  One day I will surely die, and what will I leave behind as my contribution to this world and the animals, people, and plants that live in it?

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