Month: January 2019

I, myself

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All acts and facts are a production of spiritual power,
the successful ones of power which is strong enough;
the unsuccessful ones of power which is too weak.
Does my behavior in respect of love effect nothing?
That is because there is not enough love in me.
Am I powerless against the untruthfulness and lies
which have their being all around me?
The reason is that I myself am not truthful enough.
Have I to watch dislike and ill-will carrying on their sad game?
That means that I myself have not laid aside small-mindedness and envy.
Is my love of peace misunderstood and scorned?
That means that I am not yet sufficiently peace-loving.  –Albert Schweitzer

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I would love to believe that my life begins and ends within the boundaries of my skin; that I’m connected to nothing and no one, and that I bear no responsibility for anyone other than myself.

But that’s just not the way the world works. For better or worse, we’re all part of the same big world. We’re all connected in so many ways to each other and everything else on this planet.

There are ways of being in the world that do not contribute to its wholeness or well-being. I would like to crawl up into my head and say, “Not me!”

I’m doing it right. It’s the others. It’s them over there. They’re screwing everything up. And they should have to experience the consequences of their misguided, stupid, irresponsible, thoughts and actions. Not me. Not my responsibility. I’m doing it right.

But it is me.

As long as anyone on the planet is hungry, the responsibility is mine. As long as children are abused, the responsibility is mine. As long as other living things are devalued and not respected, the responsibility is mine. As long as the planet is being abused, the responsibility is mine. As long as anyone is homeless, unable to pay the heating bill, unable to get the drugs they need, unable to be educated, supported, loved, cherished, the fault is mine.

Because I am you. And her. And them. And us.

All of us. We. This world, and all the two-legged, skinned, finned, furred, feathered and green things in it. Whatever is lacking is whatever is missing in me. And I’m the one who has to fill those holes.

It begins with me. And until I really understand that, I’m not doing it right, after all.

Frugal living

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wine + cheese night

A couple of years ago a friend and I were in an antique shop. She collects miniature tea sets, and they had a couple; one in particular that she really liked. I suggested she should buy it, and she said, no, it’s not good to get everything you want.

I think of that statement quite often. It’s one of two things in my life that someone said to me that changed the way I thought about something instantly. It’s not good to get everything you want. Wow. I came across a quote by Bertrand Russell this week, in which he claimed pretty much the same thing: “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”

I think it`s absolutely true about stuff. It is human nature to become spoiled by instant material gratification. I think much of what is wrong with American capitalist culture stems from consumerism, and the ease with which those with money can get stuff. We lack appreciation for the way things are made, and for the people who made them. I definitely see it in young people in my small, generally quite well-off community, and the way they take for granted easy access to instant communication, computers, cars, clothes, etc. If material needs are met too easily, human beings tend to become bored and unappreciative of the stuff they have; always wanting more, more, more.

What about less touchable things, like how you’d like something to play out, or how you’d like someone to treat you? Those kinds of expectations trip me up all the time. I find my mind wandering off into the future, conjuring up scenarios about an event or situation. How I think it’ll all go and how wonderful (or not) I expect it to be. Or I think I know how someone will react to something, or what they’ll do, or even who they are.

It’s silly, really, that I would still be allowing myself to indulge in these little fantasies. Certainly if life has taught me anything, it’s been that I can expect nothing. Nothing ever turns out the way I think it will (for better or worse). People are hardly ever who I think they are (for better or worse). In fact, the more I expect a certain outcome or action, the less likely it is to be anything even remotely resembling what I was expecting or hoping for.

All situations teach us. What we learn is sometimes dubious, but we learn, nonetheless. Have I been made stronger by my unmet expectations, or do they debilitate me? I think the answer is: both. I have been forced to look within myself for what I need to keep going, and that’s a good thing. I can take care of myself, and I’ve learned to be a person I can count on. Definitely good.

And sometimes I am surprised. Several wonderfully surprising things happened in the last few days; things I wasn’t expecting, or even imagining. Four people went out their way to do nice things for me. It made up for the myriad ways my expectations fell short, and then some.

So, an indispensable part of happiness? Yes, I think so. I aspire to live frugally on surprise. Expect nothing. I think ultimately all I can hope for is keep striving to be the person I need. Situations change, people change. Nothing in this life is static. I can count on nothing but my own ability to adapt, so that had better keep getting stronger. Counting on anything external – including other people – for one’s own well-being is certain disappointment.

I’d rather be surprised! It’s not easy to let go of those expectations. It requires staying in the moment – being fully with what’s happening now – with no thought of what’s past or expectation of the future. No small thing. It’s an arduous journey, but worth the effort.

Note to self: Go slow. Take snacks. Rest when necessary. Pay attention. Welcome everything.

We’ll get there sooner or later. All is well.

 

Put it right there on my chart

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goldstar

I found myself at the gym last night wishing that there was a punching bag. What kind of gym doesn’t have a punching bag? I wanted to kick something, punch something, wrestle something to the floor. I could have done all those things to one of the three men who were lifting really heavy weights over on the other side of the room, I guess, but I didn’t. I’m thinking: wise choice.

No punching or kicking. I restrained myself, and channeled my anger into the Stairmaster. I bet I climbed to Saudi Arabia. “Stomped” would probably be a better word. The poor machine groaned when I finally stepped off it. Yes, I was a little tense.

Somebody made me angry yesterday, and the more I thought about it as the day went on, the madder I got. My hair was practically on fire by the time I got to the gym. What made me so mad, you ask? Just something thoughtless somebody said. Isn’t that silly? I got that angry over something I probably shouldn’t even care about. But I felt slighted, disrespected, and taken for granted.

I couldn’t let it go. It ate at me all day. All the things I wanted to say in response to this person ran through my head at light speed all day. Of course, at the time, I didn’t say anything, so the person doesn’t even know I’m angry. I’m the only one suffering here. Well, me and the poor Stairmaster.

So, the good thing in this tale of woe is that I marched to Saudi Arabia to get all that anger out of my system. I didn’t drink, I didn’t eat, I didn’t break or throw anything, and I didn’t blow up at the people (furry and otherwise) I live with. Those were my best ways of dealing with anger in the past…well, those and denial.

I didn’t hurt myself or someone else because I was hurt, and I didn’t pretend I wasn’t hurt.

Gold star for me, I think. Perhaps I’m growing up, after all.

Between the pages

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I came across this site a long time ago, and it made me think about some of the odd things I’ve found in books over the years.

I’m a voracious reader, and I make good use of our (really fabulous) local library. I borrow books, I request books from other libraries, and I buy books at the annual book sale. I buy books at Goodwill and other second-hand shops, and at garage sales, too.

I have nothing against new books, but I can rarely justify paying for them when they are available for free or almost free. More than the cost, though, I value recycling and I also really like the idea of enjoying a book someone else has already read and had in their hands; it makes me feel connected to other book lovers in a distant, but oddly intimate way.

I love to find comments in the margins, and lots of times there is stuff stuck in the book. Usually I find innocuous or obvious things like the library receipt, a credit receipt from the second-hand store, or a bookmark.

But sometimes it`s other things, more intriguing things that I`m sure were left in the book accidently. Once I found a picture of a woman sitting on a couch in a living room and laughing. She was older and had dyed black hair, and bright red nail polish. She was wearing a red sweater and black pants.

The odd thing about the picture was that it had been ripped on all four sides to leave only the fragment with the woman in it. There must have been other people in the photo as the woman is looking away from the camera and laughing, obviously at someone to her right, who has been ripped out of the picture.

I looked at the picture for a long time. Our lives are connected now in a very odd way, even though I have no idea who she is, and she probably has no idea what has become of that picture. I want to know what she was laughing at, and what was in the rest of the picture.

She`s a real person, living her life somewhere, and she or someone who knew her had read the book on my nightstand. Or maybe she`s dead now. I would like to know her name. Doesn`t that seem wierd? Just the fact that I wasn`t meant to ever see that picture makes it seem like something stolen, or too personal, somehow.

Once I found a note in a book and when I started to read it I felt like I was eavesdropping or interfering in some way, so I folded it back up and put it back in the book without reading the rest of it. I always put the stuff back right where I found it, and send the book back out into the world for the next person to discover the unexpected contents.

Thinking about the ways in which we are connected never loses it fascination for me. Like people who are traveling on the highway at the same time, or flying on the same airplane, shopping in the same store or sitting in the same movie theater. There is always the chance that they`ll meet and their lives will become intertwined, for better or worse.

Otherwise, we just seem to each be in our separate bubbles. But we aren’t really. That’s just an illusion. The other people are there in the picture, but to each individual, life consists of only our own little fragment. The other pieces are out there, though, just waiting to come together.

Ins and outs

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Me (on the right) in college roughly 100 years ago.

I have never been cool. I’ve tried; but I just can’t pull it off. Not when I was a kid, not as a college student, not as a thirty-something, not now. I’m geeky, wear what I want, do what I want (currently within the bounds of my responsibilities at home), and I’m not at all interested in most of the things that American culture says I should be interested in.

In school, while other kids were passing notes and giggling about boys, I was reading every book I could get my hands on, and playing at home with my new microscope, or writing a new story or play. I put on puppet shows. My mother made me wear my hair cut very short, and she picked out my clothes until I was 14 or so.

Not good.

In high school I wrote poetry, and was on the student council. I was in the French club, and on the Drama and Debate teams. Total geek (or nerd, as we were called then). I worked and bought my own clothes, and my mother gave up on the hair thing. So I didn’t look like a loser anymore, but I still wasn’t cool.

Which is not to say I didn’t have good friends, and actually I got along okay with everybody in my class. I smoked, so there was common ground with the “burn-outs,” and my best friend was a cheerleader, so I had an “in” with the  “popular/jock” kids. True Aquarian–everybody was my friend. But I was still not cool, and I knew it. Sometimes it bothered me, sometimes it didn’t.

In college I was wild about computers and journalism. My roommate was cool, and I got a little “cool” benefit from her, but mostly I was really into school, but not really that into the social aspects of school. I didn’t have very many friends, but I didn’t really care that much. I got along okay with the girls on my floor, and later with my apartment-mates, and we had a lot of fun, but mostly I was more involved with the sort of obscure things that interested me, and not much into the things that went on around me.

My college boyfriend was a geek at heart, but was still trying really hard to be cool. Mostly we just did our geek stuff, and talked endlessly about computers and writing and how we were going to save the world from itself. But coolness was always very important to him. He was a “yuppie” before the term was even invented; and we just couldn’t bridge that gap. Ultimately we parted ways. It took me a while to get over it.

I have always been drawn to the people on the fringes. They were usually the people who were interested in the same things I was. The ones just trying to find their way; certain that there was more to life than all the superficial stuff going on around them. They accepted a lot in me that at the time was hard even for me to accept–depression and self-doubt, especially.

So I have been fortunate to know some extremely interesting and unusual people, and now I’m able to understand that they are the cool people, after all. They (and I) didn’t fit in with popular culture at any time, but that’s okay. For whatever reason, we had to make our own way, and when we were able to do it together that was great.

So, I’m a little past middle-aged now, and not worried anymore about being cool. I worry about being a decent human being and my health, and that’s pretty much it. I still have long hair and I still wear what I want, without worrying about whether I fit in. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.

It’s okay either way.

Maybe people should worry about whether they fit in with me. Who knows, maybe those of us who are a little bit “out of it” are the “in-crowd” after all. Ultimately I think we’re all okay, and there’s room for us all on this great big planet. Cool or not, in or out. We’re all just us, doing the best we can, and that’s what really matters.

This little light of mine…and yours

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An old Hasidic tale…

The rabbi asked his students: “How can we determine the hour of dawn, when the night ends and the day begins?” One of the students suggested, “When from a distance you can distinguish between a sheep and a dog.” “No,” said the rabbi. “It is when you can look into the face of human beings and you have enough light in you to recognize them as your brothers and sisters. Up until then it is night, and darkness is still with us.”

The student is never right in these stories, is he? You think you have the answer, but no, once again, you`ve got it wrong. All your study and striving in life means nothing, because you still don’t have it right. And you probably never will. At least, it feels that way.

Because, as always, the answer is within you — the last place we remember to look. Why? Perhaps because it seems to all be happening OUT THERE. That’s where the action is, the really interesting stuff. Out there. Not in here. In here there is only me, and I’m sick of me. I’m tired of being in the dark. I want to be out there, where it seems to be bright and interesting, warm and inviting. There doesn’t seem to be enough light in me. So I reach out there, out there, out there.

I reach out to you, because I think I can see your light, and I want to be warmed by it. I reach out to God, whatever I think that means. I reach out to anybody – like a plant, I turn to any light I think I see, in the hopes of receiving nourishment, fulfillment. I want reassurance, warmth and comfort. I reach out there, to the flash and pop of modern life. I reach for food, or drugs, or alcohol, or money, or sex – whatever I think will give me that buzz and blast of light. Come on baby, light my fire. When there is no real light, artificial light seems like it’ll work. And it does, for a while.

For a little while. Then you start to feel cold again, and you realize, yup, still in the darkness. Still in here. Still me. All of us/only me. All in the darkness together, but it’s too dark in here to see anybody else, so I think I`m alone. And really, I am.

Because there will be no real light in the world until I nurture the light within me, and you nurture the light within you. Find the light and protect it, build it up, until we can all see by it. Not OUT THERE. In here.

In me.

In you.

In us. All of us.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—
that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do.
― Mary Oliver, House of Light.

A guiding light lost to us. RIP Mary Oliver 1935-2019.

 

The space between

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Disappointment

I was feeling pretty religious
standing on the bridge in my winter coat
looking down at the gray water:
the sharp little waves dusted with snow,
fish in their tin armor.

That`s what I like about disappointment:
the way it slows you down,
when the querulous insistent chatter of desire
goes dead calm

and the minor roadside flowers
pronounce their quiet colors,
and the red dirt of the hillside glows.

She played the flute, he played the fiddle
and the moon came up over the barn.
Then he didn’t get the job, —
or her father died before she told him
that one, most important thing—

and everything got still.

It was February or October
It was July
I remember it so clear
You don`t have to pursue anything ever again
It`s over
You`re free
You`re unemployed

You just have to stand there
looking out on the water
in your trench coat of solitude
with your scarf of resignation
lifting in the wind.

-Tony Hoagland, from What Narcissism Means to Me (Graywolf Press)


I love this poem. You have to just stand there. That`s just it, isn’t it? There`s nothing you can do with disappointment, but just stand there. Stand in the middle of it, watch it go by, over, around you, with only resignation to buffer its effects.

I’ve been thinking about disappointment a bit lately. I am often disappointed – in myself, in other people, in the way things turn out in life. Who isn’t? Right or wrong, we all have expectations and hopes. I try not to have those expectations, but some small part of my brain, or heart, or left calf muscle, harbors secret ambitions – secret even to me, until the querulous insistent chatter of desire goes dead calm.

Disappointed. Again.

Disappointment fills in the space between What Is and What Could Be. I love What Could Be. I want to live there. My spirit does live there, or at least spends most of its time there. My spirit believes that everything is possible, and soars at the prospect of my potential, the potential of human beings, and this earth, and the mysteries beyond this earth.

But I’m always brought back to What Is, and all I can do is just stand there. Who I Am, Who Other People Are, The Way the World Works Now…What Is. That’s all there there is, really. All the rest or it lives only in my head. Just a dream. Not real. Not here. What Isn’t. And Won’t Be.

Can’t be?

But that’s the danger of disappointment–the excuse it gives you, the scarf of resignation–to give up, never to pursue anything ever again. What’s the point? I’m always tempted to wrap myself up in that scarf and just say, “No more.” Standing here on the bridge, I think, why not just give it up?

And the answer echoes off the water: Because that’s not how it works. Life is hard. People are hard, growing is hard, keeping going is hard. But there’s so much more: beauty and love and joy and music and poetry. And sometimes I am who I need to be, and the world is what it seems to be. It’s all mixed up; disappointment and joy, pain and love.

What Is is What Is Now, and What Could Be may be What Is someday. We don’t know. I don’t know. It’s that not knowing that is the other side of disappointment; the other side of resignation.

In the space between; that’s where we live.

Life is with people

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Life is With People is a book I read in college. I’ve never forgotten the title because it’s so true. The book was specifically about Jewish communities throughout history, and how the idea of community is woven so completely into the fabric of Jewish life that it never occurs to them to question the value of it.

I plodded through the book then – it was required reading for a Jewish Studies course I was taking; the course was great, but the book was not – and beyond the simple description I just gave, I don’t remember a thing about it, except that the cover was bright orange. I think of the title often, though.

Here’s the thing: my Aquarian heart knows that life is with people. I was born knowing that. Aquarians are hard-wired for brotherhood, sisterhood, neighborhood; whatever ‘hood you want to name. When in Sunday school they told me that Jesus asked me to love my neighbor as myself, I got it. I did then, and I do now. I embrace the idea of community, completely, wholly, happily.

Exclusion makes me angry. I can sniff it a mile away, and it always turns my stomach. The idea that some people are acceptable, and others are not – for any reason – is simply ridiculous to me. More than ridiculous, it is repulsive. Exclusion requires judgment, intolerance, and fear. People cite all kinds of reasons for exclusion – most often morality – but let’s be clear: it’s about ignorance and fear, and nothing else. There is nothing moral about prejudice. The Bible, supposedly the last word (no pun intended) on morality is pretty clear on this point, too: Judge not, lest ye be judged.

I don’t find any ambiguity in that statement at all. Same as “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Clear, concise; no room for misunderstanding. Is there?

Is there?

I was a card-carrying, singing-in-the-choir Episcopalian for most of my life. I explored every other religion/belief system/moral tenet out there when I was a young adult. Some resonated with me, others did not. I took what had meaning for me and left the rest. So I had sort of a hybrid personal religion, but I always maintained ties with Christianity in general, and the Episcopal church in particular.

Until 10 years ago, or so. I still love the Episcopal church in general, especially the little one in my tiny town. My parents were married there, I was baptized and confirmed there. I really did sing in the choir. When I got older, and understood the poetry and beauty in the liturgy, I loved it even more. I loved the community spirit of the congregation. I loved coffee hour. I looked forward to Sunday. I was a believer, baby!

I believed in God, though probably I defined that more broadly than even most of my pretty broad-minded-as-Christians-go fellow Episcopalians. And I believed in people – the power of the human spirit. The Episcopal church was the first to appoint an openly gay man as a bishop. Further evidence to me that these were my people. 

Then our beloved priest retired, and we got a new one from out east. He was a bigot, misogynist, and a homophobe. A man of God. Believed in Christ. Believed that people of color, women and LBGT people were less than God’s cherished creatures. He protested the appointment of Bishop Robinson, openly and vehemently. When our bishop came to visit the parish, he embarrassed us by spewing his hate following the Bishop’s speech to the congregation.

Yikes.

So I’m thinking, okay, this is a test of my belief that everyone has a place at the table. God has a sense of humor. He’s testing me.

All are welcome?

Okay, how about this guy?

I failed the test. I didn’t condemn the priest as human being, but I couldn’t deal with him and his hypocrisy every Sunday. The worst part was that I discovered that some of the congregants, many of whom I had known and loved since childhood, shared his beliefs.

It broke my heart. I stopped going.

Years later we got a new priest and I started going again, but it was different. It was tainted. I gave up after a couple of years. I realized finally that I no longer trusted any of it, including God.

Mainly I didn’t trust myself, and that’s what I had the most trouble with. Confronted with people who didn’t believe what I believe, I crumbled. Judge not, lest ye be judged. I couldn’t do it. I’m as much a hypocrite as that priest. I judge him for judging others.

Ack.

I believe there is a place for us all in our community, and yet, when it really comes down to it, there are people I would exclude, maybe. Ideas I would exclude, certainly. Clearly I have more to learn, more work to do. I’m challenged to accept intolerant, judgmental people as readily as I welcome people who think as I do, or I am just as intolerant. That’s the paradox. There’s no way around it.

Life is with people. They only way for us all to survive is to accept and live that. Everyone must be welcome, no matter what. We are each of us unique, and our challenge is to find our common ground and work together to benefit us all. Community.

No small thing.

And yet, everything.

 

The thing with feathers

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Several years ago I decided to purge my closet of all the clothes that didn’t fit anymore. I had heard of a local program that helps welfare women dress for first-time job interviews – the kinds of jobs that might help them improve their financial situation. I had a bunch of clothes left over from a former life and a former body, including business suits and other suitable attire for job-interviewing. I packed them all up and took them downstairs and put them by the door to be taken away.

Every time I went out the door for months I’d walk past that box of clothes, and think, “I should take those with me and drop them off.” But I didn’t. Over and over I didn’t. So I started wondering why. I knew I’d never wear them again – at that point they were all 3 sizes too small, and the business that required me to wear them was long gone. That part of my life had ended three years prior, so why it was so hard to get rid of those clothes?

Because I had not fully accepted that that wasn’t still going to be my life. Some part of me was hanging on to the hope that it had all been a mistake; a bump in the road, and that I would have that life I loved so much again. It took a long time to come to terms with that loss.

This is not, of course, the rational part of me. It’s a part of me that says “no.” No to loss, no to powerlessness, no to reality. This is not the best part of me, but is a part nonetheless. That part of me occasionally still doesn’t understand why trying as hard as you can makes no difference. That part of me thinks life should be fair. That part of me really believes all that stuff about working hard and succeeding.

I’ve finally accepted that the reality is that you can do all that you can, have faith, work hard, believe completely that everything will work out, and still fail. I know that life is not fair. I know that life is about struggle and loss and finding joy and strength in spite of it. But there’s still a little bit of me – that part that couldn’t get rid of those clothes – that doesn’t want life to be like that.

I want life to be fair.

When I tell people about my past, I say that I lost my business. Like I don’t know where it is right now, but I’m sure it will turn up. It also implies that I really didn’t have anything to do with that loss; I was just working along and it wandered off, or maybe, was abducted by a group of marauding business stealers.

I have trouble saying that the business failed. Businesses don’t fail, people do. And so if I’m going to use that word, I have to admit that I failed, and I was no more ready to do that than I was to give up the clothes, the files, and the business cards for a long, long time. It’s still hard.

The weight of that loss – of my belief in myself, in possibility, and in the universe’s willingness to support me – was more than I could bear. So I stuck it in the closet for years. What do you do when everything you believed about yourself, other people, the world, and God all turned out to be false? How do you go on after you’ve discovered that truth about yourself, other people, and life – that you can rely on nothing, ever?

Life just is what it is – sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s difficult, but no matter what you do, how you live, how hard you try, there is no guarantee. Without diluting that knowledge with drugs or alcohol, or the distractions of the world, how do we go on?

We just do. We have to. You come to rely on yourself, be true to yourself, and you just keep going. Every now and again you drag the past out of the closet and decide whether you can finally let it go, or whether you want to hang on to some things a little longer – just in case.

In between you hope. Just hope; that the world might accidentally sometimes work out like you want it to, or that you’ll become the person you need to be to keep going without stumbling when it doesn’t.

Or maybe you just hope that the sun is shining tomorrow.

Maybe that’s enough.

Finding my way

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Is the American Dream still a thing? Do kids still believe in it – the belief that you can be anything you want to be, if only you try hard enough? I admit I used to believe it. I grew up in the 60s and 70s and I think we all believed it.

Maybe it’s just a youth thing, and isn’t unique to this country at all. Everybody thinks they know how to do it; everybody thinks they have the secret to life when they are young, and that they will be successful. It’ll be different for me. But some of us – I would venture to say most of us – have learned the real secret of life: it’s about failure, not success, after all. Success is easy. It’s failure that stretches us and helps us to grow.

I read stuff all the time about people who have risked everything to follow their dreams and who have succeeded big time. Yay for them! The message I get from these stories is that I should do the same; all I lack is courage. My lack of courage is the only thing stopping me from living the life of my dreams. Hesitating, or stopping to consider things like money or time or the rest of the world has more to do with my lack of courage than actual reality, because, after all – here it comes: I create my own reality. Right? So all I have to do is create what I want. Presto! If what I have in my life is not what I want, then I’m just not doing it right.

Well…I just don’t believe it’s that simple.

I have to say, I do believe in the esoteric truth of this principle. I think someday (if we and the planet survive long enough) we’ll have a better grasp on our ability to manipulate matter at the molecular (energetic) level. I believe thoughts have power. I believe in the collective unconscious, and I believe that everything on this planet and in our bodies ultimately comes down to the balance of energy and the power of the human spirit. But I do not believe that I create my own reality by simply changing my mind, or wishing harder, or dreaming bigger. Nor frankly, do I want to.

I have learned the hard way that when I try to “make things happen,” or create my own reality – I get kicked in the teeth. On the other hand, when I let things flow, everything turns out pretty good, or at least not horrible, most of the time. Not exactly what I had cooked up in my grandiose little ego-mind, but okay nonetheless. I think if I hear one more person say “Let go and let God,” I’ll have to spit on something, but that’s exactly what I try to do now, though I would substitute Tao for God.

Here’s all I know for sure: Life is hard and wonderful. The range of stuff that can happen to human beings on this planet goes from short-lived really terrific to longer-than-you-think-you-can-endure really horrible.

So I think the trick is not to dream bigger or try harder, but to be happy with whatever is the reality right now. Be grateful everyday for all that I have and all that I’ve been spared. We have to honor our struggles and our pain, and then just get on with it.

Stop trying to “create” the life you want. Live the life you have.

If there’s something you really feel called to do, do it, or at least set your sights in that direction and plan a route. Just know and accept that nothing’s guaranteed. Life is just going to be what it is, no matter what we do or want or think. You will succeed or fail or experience something in between. Don’t be surprised, though, if they all look like the same thing. Our ideas of success have nothing to do with the way success is defined in universal or spiritual terms.

Clearly, some people are here to dream big dreams and to do big things, hopefully things that improve life on this planet for all of us (including the furry, feathered, buzzing, growing, and swimming things, too). That’s their path. But most of us are called to live smaller lives, to tread a less celebrated path, and we must learn to live as sweetly and as gently as possible along the way.

I’ve given up on my American Dream grandiosity, and am now concentrating on what I believe are the truly important things; the challenges that have been put in front of me right now, right here:

Be kind. Tread gently on the planet. Be of use, help out whomever and wherever I can. Be a good friend. Do good work.

I’m still riding along on training wheels for all of that stuff, and probably will be all my life. I started out on a tricycle, though, so I’m doing better, and I’m grateful for that. I remember writing a few years ago that I was in training for greatness (yes, I confess: affirmations seemed like a good idea at one point).

Now I believe I’m in training for not-greatness.

And that’s just where I want to be.