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We all have a new week in our lives with many
opportunities to do
new and different things, and to do the same old
things in new and different
ways, if we choose to do so. We sincerely hope
that you're able to make this
a memorable week in your life in all sorts of
positive ways!
Many health professionals have a deep regard for
life and a wish to use their lives in service to
others. This commitment goes deep and
often enables them to go on despite significant
difficulties, disappointments, and losses.
Yet such things are rarely discussed in the
doctors' dining room or at grand rounds.
Most of those who have passed through the
professional retreat program at Commonweal say
that while they have shared many difficult
situations with their colleagues and have
trusted one another's experience and judgment
absolutely, they have never discussed what their
work means to them or what has brought them to
it with another professional before. As
professionals, meaning is a part of our secret
lives.
It is hard to break these habits of silence, and
during our retreats we often use symbolism as a
way to open this sort of discussion among
professionals. The group sandtray enables
a level of dialogue that might not otherwise be
possible. In a two-hour session, the eight
professionals in the retreat have the
opportunity to chose objects from our sandtray
room that represent the meaning of their own
work to them and use these objects to share this
meaning with each other.
Marie, a young nursing administrator from a
large urban hospital on the East Coast, took part
in one of these sessions.
As each person seated around the santray table placed
the objects they had gathered into their section of the
sand, I noticed that she had kept something back and put
it beneath her chair. As the instruction is to use
all the symbols you bring to the table, I had wondered
about this. One by one the group members spoke about
the objects they had chosen and how each symbolized a part
of what their work meant to them. Marie listened
closely and seemed deeply moved by what the others were
saying. About halfway through, she began to speak
about what she had put before her in the sand. When
she finished, she fell silent for a few moments and then
hesitantly told us that there was something she wanted to
add that she did not want others to see. She asked
us to close our eyes while she did this.
The group of nurses, physicians, psychologists, and social
workers sat around the table with our eyes closed.
In the silence, Marie reached under her chair for the
object she had hidden. After a few moments she told
us we could open our eyes, and we saw she had placed a
slender white candle in a tall candlestick in the center
of her part of the sandtray. It was unlit.
Just showing it to us obviously had a deep emotional
significance for her. I offered her a box of kitchen
matches, and she sat holding them for a long time, unable
to light the candle or even talk about it. Finally,
she lit it, saying in a barely audible voice that it
represented her real self. It was a touching and
surprisingly intimate moment, especially powerful as the
candle bore a striking resemblance to her own beauty,
simplicity, and purity.
One at a time, others also shared their work, and then the
woman seated next to Marie at the table began to
speak. She, too, had an unlit candle in her
tray. It was short and fat. She told us that
it represented her dream of being a professional and
working with an open heart. As she spoke, instead of
lighting her candle with the matches, she picked it up,
reached across the low wooden boundary between her section
of the table and Marie's and lit it from the flame of
Marie's candle. Marie burst into tears.
The woman, a sophisticated psychiatrist, began to
apologize, saying that she had no idea why she had not
used the matches and had not meant to invade Marie's
sandtray. "Oh, no," Marie told her,
"it's just that there's so much cynicism and judgment
among us that I never show anyone at work what really
matters to me. Only my patients know. I am
afraid that people will laugh or that they will think less
of me and so I hide myself.
"For me this work is holy. It is my
calling. When you lit your candle from mine, I saw
why it might be important to stop hiding. Perhaps I
can find the courage to be who I really am. Perhaps
there are others. . . like you. . . who are hiding,
too." There was a moment of silence, and then
these two women reached for each other's hands.
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We're made, mostly, by the people who surround
us. We make each other every day. I'm
constantly telling this to people. They say,
"Oh, loving is so difficult." I say,
"Don't you know how easy it is? Loving is
simple. It's we who are complex."
Loving means offering the hassled waitress a
"Thank you. That was great."
I ate recently at a real greasy spoon in
Arizona. It was one of those places that you
walk in and the odor is enough. Even the rats
have deserted. But the food was really
good. I had ordered pork chops, and somebody
said, "You're crazy. You're gonna
die! Nobody eats pork chops in a place like
this."
I said, "But they smell so good!"
And someone down at the end was having them, and he
had an enormous dish! These pork chops were
huge! And so I ordered the pork chops, and
they were magnificent. After it was over, I
said to the waitress, "You know, I'd really
like to meet the chef." And she said,
"Was there something wrong?"
I said, "No, I want to tell this guy how
beautiful it was."
She said, "Oh, my God. No one's ever
done that." And we walked back, and he
was back there sweating. He was a big man.
And he said, "Whatsa matter?"
I said, "Nothing. Those pork chops
were just fantastic and those potatoes! They
were really wonderful. I've eaten at some of
the best restaurants in the world, and they were as
good."
He looked at me like, "God, this man's out
of his mind." And then do you know what
he said, (because it was so awkward for him to
receive a compliment)--he said, "Would you like
another?" Isn't that beautiful?
That's love. That's all it means. It
means sharing joy with people. When you see
something beautiful, it means going over and telling
them. When you see something lovely, say to
them, "You're lovely." And then back
away! Because it's going to scare the hell out
of them.
One of the funniest experiences I've ever
had--maybe I've even told this to some of you--but
it occurs to me now and it's such a beautiful kind
of example. I saw this lovely girl on
campus. She had golden hair and it was
billowing in the sun. It looked so
special. I passed her by and it flashed on
me: What beautiful hair that girl has.
And then as I walked by I thought, I should tell
her. So I spun around and I charged back
toward her. And she could sort of feel me, you
know how you can do. She turned around like
"AAAACK!" And I said, "Don't be
scared. All I want to do is tell you that you
have the most beautiful hair with the sun on it,
it's a real trip. I just really liked
it. Thank you very much."
And then I moved away, because I know about the
psychological premise of approach-avoidance.
You know, the further you get from the feared
object? So I moved slowly away, and as I got
further and further away, it began to dawn on her
that someone had paid her a compliment. And
she started to smile. And by the time I got to
the university entrance, she even waved and said,
"Thank you." It seemed to me that as
she walked away, she stood ever taller, bringing her
closer to the sun.
What's so difficult about that? We have
these opportunities every single day of our lives,
and we don't take them. We start with those
people around us. We teach them self-respect
and we make sure that everybody leaves with their
beautiful compliment that day. People say,
"Oh, but Buscaglia, that's
artificial." It doesn't have to be
artificial when you really see it. Don't tell
me the people around you don't deserve an occasional
compliment. What's artificial about that?
. . . . And it never hurts anybody to be told
that they are loved, to say to somebody, "I
love you." People say--especially this is
true of men--"Oh, she knows I love her. I
don't have to tell her I love her." Oh
really? When she's gone, then maybe you'll
wonder why. It's a simple thing to say,
"I love you." And if you can't say
it, write it. If you can't write it, dance
it. But say it! And say it many
times. One never tires of it. One may
say, "Oh, never mind telling me that. I
know . . . " But it's so nice to hear.
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
Belief in karma
ought to make the life pure, strong, serene, and glad.
Only our own deeds can hinder us; only our own will can fetter us.
Once let us recognize this truth, and the hour of our liberation
has struck. Nature cannot enslave the soul that
by wisdom has gained power and uses both in love.
Annie Besant
Many
Role Models Aren't
When
we're young, it can be pretty easy to think that the
adults around us have their acts together.
There's kind of an implicit assumption when we're
around older people that "Hey, they've made it
this far, so they should have a lot of wisdom to
impart." And in many cases, of course,
this is true. There are plenty of people on
this planet who have lived very happy lives and who
are able to pass on to us lessons in living just by
being who they are--we can watch how they live and
emulate their actions, and in doing so we can learn
how to live happily ourselves.
Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to everyone who's
older than we are. Many people simply don't
have their acts together, and many older people are
still more strongly motivated by selfish reasons
than altruistic ones. I've seen many people
who try to "teach" young people things
that are destructive and extremely ineffective as
life strategies. Many people are unhappy, and
they seem to want to pull others into their
unhappiness by advising them to live just as they
have.
For example, one of my aunts (my grandmother's
sister) seemed to be a very nice lady, and I did
care for her, but in retrospect I understand just
how unhappy she was. I won't go into details,
but she was a very lonely and rather bitter woman
towards the end of her life. Unfortunately,
despite her unhappiness she still insisted on giving
life advice to her younger relatives like my
siblings and me. And her advice was awful, as
she was very cynical about other people and (I
realize now) unwilling to see the good in
others. Her advice had to do with not trusting
anyone, ever, for the most part, and certainly not
trusting romantic partners. She ended up
living most of her adult life alone, and I'm pretty
sure that the same thing might have happened to me
had I paid attention to her advice.
I work with a lot of teachers and coaches, too, who
are simply awful role models for kids. They
insult kids, they treat them poorly, and they do
their jobs poorly, all the while considering
themselves to be wonderful role models. I
simply can't use names here, but I could make a long
list of ways that kids will turn out later if they
view these people as role models: they'll be
selfish, cynical, unhappy, frustrated, judgmental,
satisfied with mediocrity, insulting, toxic
individuals who will have a hard time finding
happiness in their lives.
I honestly don't say this to be harshly judgmental,
but I do observe carefully and try to understand why
people are what they are. And, truth be told,
many of the problems that I see in my students, many
of the reasons that they're frustrated and unable to
find happiness, have to do with the role models in
their lives. At parent conferences, for
example, I'm often struck with the impression.
"No wonder this kid is the way s/he is--they
take after this parent."
After all, everyone's free to follow any role model
they want, but children are much more likely to
follow their parents' examples because of the love
they feel for them. And kids still haven't
learned anything about long-term affects of certain
actions, so when they see their parent drinking a
six-pack of beer every night, that seems like a good
thing to do because hey, then I'll be just like
dad. They don't understand that dad's need for
alcohol reflects a much deeper set of issues, not to
mention that the need also harms the family finances
significantly.
Am I a role model myself? I certainly try to
be, though I do have some behaviors that I wouldn't
encourage others to follow. For example, I
hurt my foot on Saturday, but then decided to run a
half marathon on Sunday, which definitely wasn't a
good idea for my foot, which experienced a whole lot
more pain after Sunday's run. I would tell any
young person NOT to use me as an example if they
ever need to decide whether to run with an injury,
that they should make up their minds on their
own. (That said, the half marathon was a
beautiful mountain run that I enjoyed despite the
pain!)
But as role models, so much of what young people
learn from us, they learn simply by observing.
How do I treat young people in my classroom?
How do I interact with my peers? How do I talk
to strangers? Am I polite and courteous, or am
I rude or indifferent? How do I do my
work? I can't tell you how many lessons that
are full of typos and misspelled words and poor
punctuation that I've seen photocopied for
students. As soon as those are handed out, a
message is given: one doesn't necessarily have
to take the time to make sure things are right, and
a mediocre product is fine (or even worse: you
guys aren't worth me taking the time to get this
right before I hand it out to you).
Whenever I meet someone that I feel I may want to
emulate, I try to find out more about that
person. Are they happy? Do they show
kindness to others? Are they aware of their
own shortcomings? Are they selfish or
selfless? Perhaps this is why so many of my
personal role models have been found through
reading--it's not always easy to meet people who
serve as find role models in real life. After
all, outside of family, school, and work, our social
circles tend to be rather small, and the number of
people who may serve as role models rather limited.
It's a good idea sometimes to re-evaluate some of
the life lessons that we've learned from people who
have turned out to be questionable role
models. After all, no one's perfect, and the
lessons that we think we've learned may be little
more than a smoke screen that was hiding something
else that we didn't want to learn. It's also a
good idea to teach young people to be more
discriminating when they choose the role models that
they choose to emulate--after all, emulating this
person's actions can be expected to have the same
results that the actions had for the person.
And if those results aren't positive, then guess
what?
Life
is a place of service and in that service one
has to suffer
a great
deal that is hard to bear,
but more often to experience a
great deal of
joy. But that joy can be real only if people look
upon
their life as a
service, and have a definite
object in life outside
themselves
and
their personal happiness.
Lev Tolstoy
An
Irish Blessing
May your joys be
as bright as the morning,
and your sorrows merely be shadows
that fade in the sunlight of love.
May you have enough happiness to keep you sweet,
Enough trials to keep you strong,
Enough sorrow to keep you human,
Enough hope to keep you happy,
Enough failure to keep you humble,
Enough success to keep you eager,
Enough friends to give you comfort,
Enough courage and faith in yourself to banish sadness,
Enough wealth to meet your needs,
And one more thing:
Enough determination to make each day
a more wonderful day than the one before.
Inspiration means
that you don't have to figure things out, or think
about them. Ideas and answers pop into your head and the
energy
carries you forward, if you allow it. Planning. . . is a way
of ritually
killing inspiration, which transcends the need for planning.
Chuck Spezzano
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
Explore all of our
quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each
topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on
the same topic (there are five pages on adversity, for example).
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