EMULATE OR OPPOSITE

 

A Heavenly Father's Forgiveness, Rembrandt**

I fortunately learned early in life that there are two basic ways to learn from other people.  We can emulate the things we observe that we like and simply do the opposite of those things we do not like.  We never lose if we don’t lose the lesson life is teaching us.  

Meredith Marple has listed some of the behaviors that can teach us how to do the opposite thing by listening to the wisdom life is revealing:

·         People will teach you how to love by not loving you back.

·         People will teach you how to forgive by not apologizing.

·         People will teach you kindness by their judgement.

·         People will teach you how to grow by remaining stagnant.

We can also simply emulate those behaviors that we instinctively know to be eternal truths:

·         People will teach you to love by even loving the unlovable.

·         People will teach you to forgive by even forgiving those who have wronged them.

·         People will teach you kindness by helping those who cannot return the compassion in kind.

·         People will teach you how to grow by exhibiting their passion and curiosity for learning.

 Of course, there are many other sources of learning how to live our best life such as reading about the lessons learned from a wide variety of people.  We can never gain an ultimate number of experiences in one lifetime without tapping into the wisdom that others have accrued.  Some religions profess that Jesus was a great prophet while others maintain he was the Son of God and part of the holy Trinity.  When challenged in Matthew 22:34-40 about which of the over 600 commandments that men had documented at the time were the greatest, he wisely distilled them to simply “love God and love others”.  It’s our job to love and God’s job to judge.  If we strive to do that and stay in our lane, the rest of life will take care of itself.

**And did you notice Rembrandt painted both a mother's and a father's hand symbolizing both loves expressed by God for his creation?

THIRTY-FIVE THOUSAND CHOICES

Two Roads Diverging

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”  ~Robert Frost

The average person makes about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions each day.  We need to consider the 10-10-10 rule which asks “What are the consequences in 10 days, 10 months and 10 years”.  Only a miniscule percentage will make all the difference as time passes and most do not merit all the anxiety.

The good news in American life is that we actually have the freedom and free market economy to have a lot of choices every waking moment.  For example, researchers even determined that we have 227 decisions about food every day.  There’s even a bar and grill that has smartly answered every married couples’ daily conundrum by naming their establishment “I Don’t Care” in response to one of the most frequent decisions they face, “Where Do You Wanna Go?”

Now you can decide if you wanna keep on reading.  North Carolina PBS posted these decision strategies to guide the process (along with my comments):

·         Impulsiveness — Leverage the first option you are given and be done.

·         I frequently forage for food at local food stores with a shopping list if I remember to bring it with me.  It’s safe to say that when the cashier asks if I found everything, my response is normally “Yes, and many other things I wasn’t even shopping for today.”

·         Compliance — Choosing with the most pleasing, comfortable and popular option as it pertains to those impacted.

·         If family and/or friends are gathered around a television and the majority is interested in watching another formulaic Hallmark show or a sports game, I can tolerate the show as long as I get to follow the formula and prophesy the next move.

·         Delegating — Not making the decision yourself, but pushing it off to trusted others.

·         There are many decisions which I’m not invested in and the outcome doesn’t mean a hill of beans to me.  Knock yourself out!

·         Avoidance/deflection — Either avoiding or ignoring decisions in an effort to avoid responsibility for their impact of just simply preventing them from overwhelming you.

·         At my last annual physical, my GP suggested a colonoscopy at my age to give it one last shot.  I gave that about one second’s thought and passed for the time being.

·         Balancing — Weighing the factors involved, studying them and then using the information to render the best decision in the moment.

·         A lot of decisions simply don’t deserve to be burning daylight, like “Would you like jalapeno sauce on that burger?”  Just say “Surprise me!”  Could go either way.

·         Prioritizing and Reflecting — Putting the most energy, thought and effort into those decisions that will have the greatest impact.

·         Some folks spend weeks and even months agonizing over deciding whether to stay single forever or choose someone to irritate for the rest of their lives deciding what and where to eat every night! 

 We likely use all of these strategies to cope with 35, 000 choices every waking day and choosing which ones is just one more!

 

DIRT PATHS

Dirt Path, Flint Hills, KS

Hiking Trail, Aspen, CO

Prayer Flags, Vail Mountain, CO

 "Of all the paths you take in life make sure a few of them are dirt.”—John Muir

These prayer flags were encountered on a Colorado trail with the intention that as the wind flutters through them, the vibration of the prayers and spiritual intention behind them spreads to find fulfillment over all sentient beings. (Note that the wind is coming your way)

Our sense of wind or spirit can’t see them, but prayer flags and their intent reveals them moving among us.

The first two verses in the second chapter of Acts relates the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as the disciples “were all gathered together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. “

I’ve walked many dirt paths in my lifetime across the prairies of Kansas and the mountains of Colorado and North Carolina as well as the Holy Land.  There are folks that say the best way to be in touch with nature is to walk barefoot, but I kinda like a good pair of boots.  I have a lot of memorable experiences from those paths such as listening to the wind slice through the pine needles at Mesa Verde, or the rustle of tall Bluestem grasses as we hunt prairie chickens in the Flint Hills, or the spirit moving among the overhead caves close to Magdala as we followed in the footsteps of Jesus at the Valley of the Doves.

LIFE IS DIFFICULT

Mahomes & Ossai, Arrowhead, KC, MO

Joseph Ossai & Cam Sample, Arrowhead, KC, MO

“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead, they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others.”  --The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

The photo above shows Bengals players on the bench just after the AFC playoff game where Joseph Ossai had just made the last offensive play and damning error which resulted in a final winning kick by the Kansas City Chiefs.  Only one of his teammates, Cam Sample, took the trouble to console his teammate.  In fact, one teammate in particular shouted him into the locker room!    

I remember a similar game ending play in the outfield during one of our company softball games years ago.  He had let a line drive to left field go under his mitt, allowing the winning run to score in the bottom of the ninth.  As we were returning to the sidelines, the player became inconsolable at his final flub.  We all as a team kept reminding him that we all had plenty of chances to assure that the game didn’t come down to that last play as we supported him.

The good news is that the Bengals coach reiterated our reaction in the post-game press room.  And his teammate who had so callously responded in the heat of the loss, apologized for his lack of compassion.  We have lots of free will choices in life—we can opt to kick vulnerable people when they’re down or we can pick them up when they fall.

We’re all playing this giant board game of life together as we struggle to make it home.  As we stumble along the way, it’s reaffirming when others give us a boost.  And it’s not about who finishes first, but who finishes together!

BEING ALIVE

Beach Access, Kiawah, SC

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

—Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Walking the beach at sunrise does it for me!

AFTER THE SNOWFALL HAIKU

Snowfall Cape, Jamestown, NC

Flowers bow secure,

Under a snowy white cape,

Dreaming of Spring’s warmth.

 

MEETING STRANGERS

Meeting Strangers, Chicago, Paris

It’s been said that you can never cross the same river twice, for by then both you and the river have changed.  T. S. Eliot has written that “We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.”

I’ve met a legion of people in my lifetime as I’ve worked and traveled around this planet and as I think about it, I’ve only interfaced with only a small percentage for extended periods of time.  Certainly, the more time that passed between meetings of those people has been in direct proportion to how much we both have changed as the rivers of time have carried us along.  Thanks to modern technology like digital phones and communication apps, we can at least stay in touch which renders the parameter of distance less important.  But I’ve also been a proponent of MBWA or Managing By Wandering Around, i.e., having literal face time with others. 

The Eliot quote above triggered my thoughts about meeting people at different stages of my lifetime.  And I was deeply touched by a phone call I recently received from a dear childhood friend.  He confided that he was dying of a terminal cancer and wanted to call to let me know how much he had appreciated our friendship.  We split ways after high school, but stayed in touch occasionally over the years.  We still appreciated catching up on life even though there were large gaps in our lives.  But on reflection, that was enough.

And I’ve met most of the people in my circle of acquaintances in varying stages of our lives.  When I left home after college and moved to the city, most of the people I met later knew nothing of my early days through college.  But I met and enjoyed the company of many new friends in those subsequent days of permanent jobs, married life, parenting, golfing and travel.  Later in life we transferred to another state where another whole gathering of new friends developed who had no first hand understanding of my past, but accepted me as I was and I reciprocated.  I later traveled out of the country as a consultant where I again made new friends who had to judge me as I presented myself and I reciprocated.  All along the way we also established homes and made new friends as neighbors.  I still remember a business dinner meeting with strangers where a prospective customer confided that in the final analysis, we need to have trust in our partners.  They were apparently confident in their impressions and we got the contract.

Too many folks let their past define them while the changed present is all we really need to know about one another.  All of us wake up every morning as changed beings.  Some days it’s incremental and some days it’s profound.  Almost all reunions are among strangers that must reinvest time in getting reacquainted.  And although we can’t change the past, we can always learn from it, change for the better and create new beginnings.