Hearing all this makes me even more glad that we don’t have television in our home.  We have a television set, but it’s hooked up to a DVD player so that we can choose what we want to watch, when we want to watch it.  I have to wonder how people feel after watching an entire hour of this type of conflict, this type of hype, these types of meanness–especially if watching such programs is a regular part of their days.  Whenever I’m reminded of the types of rudeness and the lack of respect that people show each other in our media, it surprises me less that I see such behavior out on the street every day.  After all, what goes in must come out, right?

In many ways, we’re working our way more and more towards becoming a culture of conflict.  Our media are focusing on conflict more and more as it becomes more and more profitable for them.  The key words in programmers’ vocabularies seem to be conflict and competition–but when was the last time we saw significant programming devoted to something such as cooperation?  Love?  Peace of mind?  Hope?

If we start reading a book and we don’t like it, we stop reading it, don’t we?  But if we start watching a television program and we’re not enjoying it, we simply change the channel.  And many times we change it until we find the least objectionable program for us–in other words, we choose the lesser of many evils, while not thinking at all about what effects it may be having on us.  Why not just turn the thing off?

There’s obviously nothing inherently wrong with TV.  But not all programming is created equal.  If we want to feel peace in our minds and hearts, then we can’t focus two of our five senses on negativity.  Television, as with anything else, can have its place.  But as I finish up here, listening to these people interrupt each other, speak condescendingly to each other, insult each other, and dish up health doses of self-aggrandizement, then I realize that the decision that my wife and I made well over a year ago to turn off our TV for good to outside programmers is definitely a very healthy decision.  We can program for ourselves with the great selection of DVD’s out there, and that’s definitely the best for us.

If I want to be content with all that I’ve done on the day I die, then I need to make positive choices today about what I’m doing today and tomorrow.  Is what I’m doing contributing in positive ways to the lives of others?  Will this next action of mine contribute to the peace and hope of the world, or the anger and frustration?

If I want to have a sense of peace on my deathbed (assuming I die in bed!), then I need to be sure that I do things that will bring me–and others–peace.  Starting or continuing arguments will never do that, nor will gossiping or spreading rumors.  Encouraging others and giving them praise, on the other hand, will.

If I want to have no regrets when I’m ready to pass on, then I need to take risks and do things that I dream of doing.  I can’t live safely inside of an artificial shell that is supposed to protect me–that’s the kind of protection that harms me more than it helps me.  Risk is a major ingredient of a fulfilling life, and the lack of risk gives us a life with no seasoning at all–just blandness and boring tastes.

I was reminded today that death will come.  If I keep that fact in mind, I can live my life so that it won’t really matter when it does–I’ll be ready to move on and willing to let go of a life that I’ve lived fully, rather than kicking and scratching to hold on to it in order to get again the chances to do so many of the things that I didn’t do when I had the chances to do them in the first place.  Which way would you prefer to go?

Death twitches my ear.
“Live,” he says, “I am coming.”

Virgil

But something that I’ve learned in the meantime is that I am lovable–that we all are lovable children of God, that we all have lovable qualities that make us truly unique.  Learning this was a great shock to me, for I had to include myself in the “all” category.  And if I were lovable, then guess what?  I didn’t need to have someone else be in love with me in order for me to know that I’m lovable.  It’s a pretty liberating realization to make, especially for someone like me who never considered himself to be lovable at all.

Some people have problems on the other end of the spectrum and consider themselves to be much more irresistable than they really are.  It’s really quite a similar problem, though in a different way.  But many of us have a hard time thinking that other people can actually love us, and learning–and accepting–that we are lovable is a very important part of our growth as human beings.  After all, why and how would God ever create a being that is completely unlovable?  It just doesn’t make sense.  If God made us, then what are we saying about God when we claim that we’re not good enough for people to love us?

You’re lovable, too.  Have you looked at yourself as a lovable person lately?  What do you see when you do?  How do you feel when you do?  It’s a great feeling to know that we’re lovable, and I hope that you treat yourself to that feeling as often as possible.  You may not be truly loved by the people you wish would love you, but that’s a question of just finding the right people who do love you, who do appreciate you for just who and what you are.  And it won’t be until you admit and accept that you are lovable that you’ll truly love yourself–and it won’t be until you truly love yourself that you’ll be able to love anyone else truly, without condition.  When we realize these facts, it becomes imperative that we reach a point at which we see and feel ourselves as lovable.  A lot depends on our ability to do this!

I have always found it hard to prune a tree and relatively easy to operate on someone.  That may seem coldhearted, but when I am operating on someone I am removing a disease or correcting some defect in the person’s body.  I can remove dead limbs from trees, but any other pruning is upsetting because I don’t want to saw through something that is alive and appears healthy.

One day I was standing in our yard next to our mimosa tree with Jeff, who is a master gardener.  “Dad, you need to prune this,” Jeff said, pointing to the tree.

The branch he was pointing to was very large and covered with many beautiful blossoms.  I told him I didn’t mind that it grew at an odd angle.  I didn’t care about the shape or symmetry of the tree.  The branch was alive and bearing blossoms and I didn’t want to lose it.

Jeff listened to my impassioned plea and then said, “Dad, if you don’t prune the tree, it will die.”

Now he was speaking my language.  If we were dealing with a threat to the life of my patient, then I could understand my consultant’s advice and the need to operate.  I got out my saw and removed the limb.

What did Jeff and the mimosa tree teach me about life?  There are times when you must be willing to give up a part of yourself to save your life.  In some cases, it means literally giving up a part of your body or the loss of the use of limbs or organs.

How much you regret giving part of yourself up depends on how you define yourself.  It is easier to lose parts of your body if you understand your essence and realize you are more than the sum of your parts.  You have a spirit and soul that cannot be altered by pruning.  Yes, the envelope can be altered and the container can be crushed, but the essence remains unaltered.  Your faith and love can continue to exist no matter how badly your physical body is damaged.

This is a difficult lesson for most of us.  Take a look around and you’ll see the people who have gone on living and loving despite disfigurement, paralysis or loss of limb.  If you see their example, learn from them and realize that you are a spirit.  Then you will understand how to give up physical parts of yourself and still be capable of performing acts for the greater good.

I removed a portion of the lovely mimosa so it could go on providing us with beauty for many years to come.  I believe the tree understood this more easily than we do.  Whether you are pruned by surgery, aging or disease, accept the fact that you must give up portions of yourself, at times, in order to survive and continue growing toward the light.  Remember that losing one part may lead to the enhancement of others.  Your work of art is not finished until the day you die.

(An excerpt from his book Prescriptions for Living.)

You see, almost everyone has heard the advice about walking in other people’s shoes.  Most people, though, don’t take advice like that to heart, and thus they lose the opportunity to learn some very important things about life and living.

One of the most important things about walking in other people’s shoes is the fact that it’s about the only way that we can learn true compassion.  When we see what other people are going through and try to understand it through the framework of our own feelings and experiences, then we simply can’t understand the truth of what they’re going through.  If we try to open our minds to understanding that there are other ways to experience things, we just might get a small indication of what it’s like to feel what they’re feeling.

And only when we get that small indication can we begin to feel compassion.  Only then can we accept that even if someone is experiencing things in ways that I never have, that doesn’t change their pain or their joy or their confusion or their satisfaction.  When we can step back and allow others to experience life in their own ways, then we can start to feel a part of a greater whole–then we can truly feel part of the human race.

Everyone is living his or her unique life.  That’s the beauty of being part of a world of individuals.  Our job isn’t necessarily to understand what others are going through or controlling it or fixing it, but simply allowing it to be and responding to it not according to what we think is expected of us, but according to what our true, sincere and authentic reaction is, the one that feels best to us as kind, considerate, compassionate human beings.

A couple of them found an old piece of cardboard.  Once they had that, it was a matter of moments before they came up with a marker and started writing on it.  Within a couple of minutes, they were standing next to the guard rail with the cardboard raised high towards the cars.  Some of the drivers started honking their horns, but most of them were going far too fast even to read the relatively small letters.

In my position, I simply had to find out what was written on their sign.  If there was something offensive or vulgar on the sign and none of us coaches did anything about it, we could have had some very negative fallout–especially with the name of the school written on the bus.  So I kept my eyes on the sign, waiting for the guy who was holding it to turn around for a moment.

It wasn’t long before he did, and when I was able to read the sign I felt a surge of hope, a flow of optimism about life in general and our students in particular.  For written on the sign for all to see were the words “Honk if you love life.”

There are so many things that a small group of 15-17-year-olds could have come up with.  There are so many ways that they could have tried to push buttons and infuriate people.  But there on the side of the highway while waiting for relief from a bus that had broken down, they came up with a beautiful message to share with everyone who happened to drive by.

I think that tomorrow on my way to work I’m going to wait until I’m in an uncrowded spot where no one can misinterpret a stray noise, and honk my horn for the memory of that sign, and in honor of the kids who shared a bit of hope with us in a most unexpected way.  Perhaps you, too–somewhere, some time–could honk if you love life.

In the movie Dead Poets Society, one of the characters does a good job of reframing something for a friend of his.  When the friend’s parents buy him the exact same desk set for his birthday that they had bought him a year earlier, he finds humor in the situation and convinces his friend that the desk set is very aerodynamic–and gets him to throw it off the roof to make him feel better.  The desk set didn’t change at all, but by reframing the set and the situation, the young man is able to make a depressing time much more bearable for his friend.

Sometimes all we need is reframing for ourselves.  When we stop seeing the specialness in a spouse or another family member, perhaps it’s time to try to see that person through someone else’s eyes.  When we get tired of our car, it can be time to start thinking of life without a car, or with the first car we ever had.  Trying to imagine how something would look through the eyes of a child can be very helpful–after all, kids still have that ability to feel the sense of wonder that can make something look much more special than it is–or even exactly as special as it is.

In our culture, we tend to think that when something has run its course, when we get tired of something, then it’s time to replace it.  I think that our lives could be much simpler and fulfilling if we stopped replacing so many things and simply learned how to look at things with new eyes, and with new appreciation for the qualities that we liked in them in the first place.

I make it a point to give extra encouragement to one or two students a day, since I know I can’t make one-on-one contact with them all.  I try to rotate it, too, so that in the course of a month or so I hit almost everyone.  And then I start again.  The encouragement doesn’t always have the results that I wish it would, but I don’t let my unfulfilled expectations keep me from trying again the next day, and the next.  After all, the encouragement is free for me to give, and the potential benefits from it are amazing.

There are other things that we can do on that sort of level, too.  For example, we can read one or two chapters of a good self-help book each day to bring ourselves up and make ourselves feel better.  We can read one or two pages or chapters of books focused on our professions to help us to function better and make our jobs easier.  We can throw one or two dollars into a big bottle to someday have a very special night out or even a very cool vacation.  We can walk one or two miles a day to improve our health, or we can even run the same distance.

Most things in life don’t take a huge investment in order for us to reach success.  Most things take simply dedication and consistency.  I may not be the best teacher my students ever have had, or the most memorable, but I know for a fact that many students appreciate the encouragement that I give them.  And if I focus on giving it to one or two–or four or five, even–each day, then I will be making a difference in the lives of some students, no matter how slight a difference that may be.  It most certainly is worth the effort to me, and to the other people in my life upon whom I have an effect.

Our workaday lives are filled with opportunities to bless others.  The power of a single glance or an encouraging smile must never be underestimated.

G. Richard Rieger

Asking for directions is actually a pretty positive thing to do.  If you ask for directions, that means that you’re fulfilling one of your own needs.  In doing so, you’re also allowing someone else to help you, and how many people want to be there to help their fellow people with their needs?  I know that I enjoy giving directions when I know the way somewhere–it makes me feel good to help someone else out with something that’s pretty simple for me.

My problem, again, is that I forget to ask for directions.  This applies even to everyday life, when I’m faced with decisions that are difficult to make.  I forget to ask for advice, from either someone who’s been there before or from someone who’s experienced something similar or even from God, as I perceive God–and my relationship with God–to be in my life.  There are plenty of sources of directions out there, but directions are one of those things that you almost never get at all if you don’t bother to ask for them.

I want to get better at asking for directions.  I want to give more people the chance to help me, and I want to allow myself to be helped more often.  Doing this will help me a lot to learn things without having to go through the long process of exploration and discovery.  This latter can be a great process to go through, of course, but it isn’t always helpful or appropriate.  Directions are a major part of life, and the better we get at asking for them, the closer we’ll get to other people and the more integral a part we’ll play in more people’s lives–and we’ll accomplish that by asking for and getting help on our own journeys!

The frustration, though, is all mine.  They don’t cause it–they’re simply doing what they do.  I’m getting pretty good at getting less frustrated, at focusing less on what they’re not doing and more on what they are doing.  After all, I also have plenty of opportunity in class–opportunities to get to know the students, to learn from them, and to learn more myself about the subject areas that I’m teaching.  And if I stay chained to my frustration, then I’ll lose my own opportunities, won’t I?

I think it would be kind of interesting to find out just how many opportunities that I’ve squandered myself.  That’s one of the reasons that I can’t get too upset at my students–after all, I’ve done similar things, and I’ve turned out fairly okay.  They have an awful lot on their minds, and sometimes what we’re doing in class simply comes in eighth or ninth place on their list of priorities, behind the problems at home, their relationship problems, friends, and so much more.

Yes, they may be squandering important opportunities, but which of us hasn’t?  One of my most important on-going goals these days is to pay attention to the opportunities that are there in my life and to take advantage of them all that I can.  I have many opportunities every day–to encourage, to help, to give, to take, to earn, to grow, to smile, to laugh, to share, to be–and my life most definitely is less full if I continue to squander these opportunities that can make me a better and richer person.

Great opportunities come to all, but many do not know they have met them.  The only preparation to take advantage of them is simple fidelity to watch what each day brings.