heavenly resumes

Into the void

2010-11-12T19:24:00.000-08:00

It's been way too long and I have had so many fleeting moments over the past four months where I "intended" to write, to make myself sit down and capture what I considered good thought, careful, practical insight. But the moment passed. I've recently asked myself why I let that happen.

First, I know as well as anyone after all these years of meeting so many interesting people who said time and again: "I'm going to write a book". The equivalent today is even simpler: "I'm going to post something on my blog". But we wait, postpone, excuse; we have so many other useful things to do, practical problems to solve, and ways to entertain ourselves, masquerading as taking care of our overworked and underpaid lives. "I'll write a post when I'm on vacation, when the semester ends, when the weekend comes, when I've graded this last bunch of papers, when the wedding season ends".

But the void always fills up. With something. A new TV series. Marketing for new business. Getting back to the gym on a more regular basis. Visiting with girlfriends. Catching up on reading. Organizing the closet.

I used to think my fear of failure was what kept me from blog posting until I realized that as nobody reads this, what's to worry? Then I saw that my procrastination came from fear of the void. I have nothing to say, even and especially when I have these insights and self messages to get it down into a cohesive set of sentences. But that mirror of voidness is what I face every time I sit down to write material under a deadline. Fifty four times this year I wrote wedding love stories and every single time, I started the work with what felt like an empty tank. Maybe that's a chronic condition, this void, only compounded by having no audience and no deadline. It's all a void, everything I do all day, but the hustle bustle creates an illusion more comfortable than making sense of life with words. God help me if word crafting gets in the way of my public television addiction. Well, I did it: made a date with the void and made it through.

My Executive Angel

2010-02-05T20:20:00.000-08:00

We have this lizard brain which warns us of danger, mostly when it isn't real. But it's familiar to me, looking back over various periods of my life that were stagnant, stalled, stiff and otherwise going nowhere. Fear. Straight up deer- in- the- headlights fear is a powerful paralysis; it can become a way of life. You wake up years later and not much has changed.

Sometimes that fear can take on massive proportion. A few years ago, when my husband and I were living in upstate New York, we were selling our house. We had a failed business and nothing really compelling on the horizon, so it was time for the now old cliche: to reinvent ourselves.

After 18 years in one home and a wonderful community of good people, why not just stay put? Why not just find another house, smaller, easier to manage, and be done with it. No. I was restless for big change. Move to Boston. Just pull up stakes and move. Our two adult sons were here and why not? One reason why not was that we had no one else here, no very close friend to give us all the right tips. We certainly had no business contacts, and the only neighborhood we knew was the Copley Square area, hardly an affordable residential neighborhood.

I prayed to God for the courage to take every step, hard as it might be, to manage the move, to trust that I could pull off such a move this late in my life. After all, it was not retirement. I wanted Boston. But God was too far away, too focused on the global trajectory of my life, not to mentions billions of others lives, that I had to find an intermediary. Enter the Executive Angel. She could hear me directly and she always said: Yes you can! When I asked for help from New England strangers, she was there in my ear: "Ask the next question, or Ask the tough question". I listened to her, trusted her advice and took action until I made the move. It was a good move, the right move and just the right step at that time.

Who is the Executive Angel? She's a higher level of myself, a part of me that is capable of more than my lizard brain would ever recognize. This angel is there for everyone. If God is too busy, or interested in more global issues, the Executive Angel is easy to access. She's as ordinary as you are, except for the fact that this angel has the willpower, the humility, the relentless drive that you and I neglect to use most of the time.

The aim of a college education

2009-11-14T19:28:00.000-08:00

As an adjunct professor for almost five years, I've heard students from 18 to 22 discuss why they came to college, what it means to be there, and most often what they plan to do when they leave.

I remember having those thoughts more than forty years ago. I would learn, achieve, impress, and then graduate to reach higher aims of status and maybe even a living wage. I would at least work in the arts where I had studied.

This didn't happen. My career in theatre never materialized (I never got remotely close to a living wage), and I earned my living not at all in the arts. Yet today I don't regret it. My undergraduate and graduate degrees are not wasted.

On Monday I plan to ask my freshmen what they consider the aim of their college education. I've asked this before informally and the answer is always the same: to get a better job, to command a better salary, to achieve status (as in respect within the community), to be proud of having fulfilled a dream and achieved a demanding commitment.

But now the question is loaded. I've thought this one through and I've come to this conclusion: the aim of education is to make meaning out of life, to have the tools to structure a life where the concrete can be made abstract and the abstract can be concretized. A college education will force you into a discipline, but that only allows you a practical tool to perhaps use for economic activity and personal fulfillment. A college education in its most classical purpose has as its end the goal of expanding personal awareness of the breadth and depth of the human condition. But this is only leading the horse to water. To drink fully of the cup of life is the goal of lifelong learning, of the school of everyday hard knocks, of failing again and again and never giving up. Getting a better job is secondary; jobs and even industries come and go. Making meaning is permanent and continuous, even when it's mostly in the subconscious (it usually is). Perhaps my freshmen will remember this forty years from now.

A social revolution

2009-01-31T04:53:00.000-08:00

Every day about half my talk time is spent yakking with people about the free-falling economy and its effects on the job market. It's scary to think long-term over short-term and it's ambitious and perhaps naive of me to broach this in a short blog post. But here goes:

1. This is not your ordinary recession and everyone is avoiding the D word.

2. Every day the excesses of our way of life are revealed by one news release after another.

3. Pointing the finger of guilt at the guilty CEOs, the Ponzi people, etc., won't empower you and me.

4. We are actually in a social transformation, the likes of which we have never before seen.

5. Our lives have already been too busy for our souls and this is an opportunity to get the priorities straight.

6. Reach out with an open heart to all you have not had the time to give: what goes round comes round.

7. We have a brave and straight talking president who is a good role model (so far). Imitate him.

Politics Unredeemed

2008-11-22T13:25:00.000-08:00

Last night I saw the Frontline special: Boogie Man, the Story of Lee Atwater. It was aired 11/11 and if you have On Demand you can go back and see it.

Lee Atwater was the mastermind of dirty tricks used in the re-election of Ronald Reagan in 1984, but became a Republican star by 1988 when he engineered the Willie Horton ad and other outright lies about Michael Dukakis to get the first George Bush elected. After that coup, he was named head of the Republican National Committee during the first year of 41's White House tenure. From there he began early digging into the background and the subsequent smearing in 1989 of the young governor from Arkansas who would eventually beat GHWB in 1992. But Atwater was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1990 and it killed him by 1991. He recanted on his death bed, confessing that what he did was wrong and it was also bad for the country.

What matters here is this: Atwater begat Rove and Rove begat Schmidt (McCain's mastermind the last three months of his ugly campaign). To this day they all regard Atwater as a genius at political maneuvering and bending the truth to achieve the only goal: winning. The interesting aspect watching this was seeing how those "tricks" were used in the 2008 campaign. And the best part is this: it didn't work this time.

When will they ever learn? Why were his proteges not listening to what he said during his last conscious days? Almost twenty years after Atwater's last big coup, the politics of hate and division (wedge issues) has failed. I hope and pray there are strong Republicans who will rebuild and reinvent their party based on principles , not dirty tricks.

Brave New World, Part 2

2008-11-10T04:51:00.000-08:00

Last night I walked down to my local Bank of America ATM to deposit a check. This is one of those storefront 10 by 10 well-lit ATMs right out on a busy city street, hardly a dangerous place to transact with your money, but still anything can happen. I lived in New York city for twenty years, right through the "homeless" 80s. In those days, ATMs were dimly lit and beggars stood there and sometimes jumped you until Citibank put cops nearby.

Since the Obama victory, people are talking about a shift in how we see people of color: African Americans, Asians, Latinos, even Middle Easterners. When I inserted my card to enter the small space, already there at the two machines were six young men, all dark-skinned and no one over the age of (maybe) twenty. They spoke Spanish and they were somewhat fidgety.

My self-protective radar went up and I thought about what to do. I took the deposit envelope and when they finished I put in my check, but noticed they were standing nearby and not yet leaving, even though it seemed they had finished their own transactions. I decided to not take out any cash.

When I turned around one of them went back to the ATM with the others looking on. He had a wad of cash to deposit but was confused and awkward. finally he turned back to me and asked in Spanish how to do a "deposito". He didn't realize he needed the deposit envelope for the cash. He handed me 480 dollars and I sealed the envelope and went to the machine to watch and coach him through it. And it was a good thing. He kept hitting "cheques" instead of "ahorra". Anyway, he got it right, finally and thanked me. They, all six of them thanked me.

In five minutes of my life, fear turned to trust, to my natural ability to take care of others. This is a new day. Know hope.

Brave New World

2008-10-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

I'm frankly baffled, out in the cold wondering what's up next. I thought of sitting down and making a list of all the things I'm not going to miss, but I couldn't imagine the shift in going from everything to nothing or at least to a very damn little. So here's the short list:

I can live without my Prius, but I do need a car for some of my out of the city assignments. A bike in winter in the Northeast doesn't do that well on the Mass Pike. I don't think they're allowed unless motorized.

I can live in a smaller home, but I do need a little privacy between my bedroom, kitchen and living room. I do need to eat and maybe having lots more time on my hands without a whole lot of work will allow me to cook long, slow meals the old fashioned way, avoiding all the waste of those pre-packaged things I buy at Costco and merely "prepare". This would be living green and saving the landfills.

Maybe we will ditch all of the two landlines we need for business and just pay for the two cell phones (or ditch the cell phones and go down to one land line). We need the line for business more than for personal use.

I could go on and on, but what about "my"Internet? How could I live without Comcast feeding my high speed? Would I become a cranky old Internet grouch?

Enough of this. I choose optimism. The alternative is just too bad for words.

Panic

2008-10-11T14:56:00.000-07:00

No hopeful news out of the presses all over the world today. But that lack of a hopeful sign may be the hope we need. So far all the plans, from the bailout to the insinuation of taking over the healthy banks temporarily, have not rallied the stock market or assured economists and even some heads of world government, so maybe we'd better be patient until the right people formulate something clearly progressive for everyone to understand. If we can grasp something here, we can at least stave off panic.

What does panic do? It's the worst possible emotion. It's fear SQUARED. Remember that we have laws that protect people from panic in public spaces: you cannot scream FIRE in a movie theatre. I watched panic once in horror in a breathtaking scenario. I had just arrived in France and turned on a local TV feed only to witness live video from Belgium when a panic broke out after a soccer game and people were being trampled to death. And this was only a soccer game. It went from enthusiasm at winning the game to over-excitement, to the beginning of a stampede rush, and finally escalated to a panic to AVOID getting crushed to death, which resulted in hundreds more getting crushed to death.

What does a panic do to the American economy? It grinds everyone to a standstill. On September 11th, 12th and for at least a week afterwards in 2001, very few people spent much money. We were even wary of traveling outside, much less purchasing good and services. We were in a numb panic. Osama bin Laden won by stopping the wheels for a brief time. This time if we remain calm we can actually think our way through this, solve it one piece at a time and look at the whole--global climates, global trade, global cooperation. For my sanity, i know there are worse days ahead, but the ease with which we transition to better days (and certainly they won't look like the last five to ten years) can be productive and satisfying. Calm leadership, genuine and thoughtful is called for all across this land. Vote Obama.

Nothing to Fear

2008-09-30T14:35:00.000-07:00

And you know the famous end of this sentence from FDR: there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

As a career coach speaking with a variety of talented but recently unemployed people around the country, I hear fear on the other end of the phone. I don't blame any of them. "What can I do to prepare for a new job if there isn't anyone willing to hire until this whole financial debacle is resolved"

Until is what the optimists say.

I think we're in for a major transformation in how we view money, credit and where money even comes from. We are globally dependent and we're watching world markets quiver and change every day. We're interdependent in far more ways than we could have dreamed of even a month ago. It's all too obvious; as goes the American economy, so goes at least Western Europe, if not much of Asia. (I haven't heard a word about China in all this, other than we will be borrowing from them to pay for the inevitable bailout).

What will the transformation look like? It will be something closer to the 1930s than most Republicans would like, but that's too bad. We need to shore up our infrastructure, improve education and other systems for the general public good. We can also pump money and jobs into the economy with large government funded programs. Putting people to work to improve the inner workings of this country boosts confidence and develops skill. Improving education promises a future. The free market will not die with this solution. It's time to bolster the confidence of the US citizens and from there to show the world once again our resiliency.

Locating yourself in a US financial disaster

2008-09-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

I call this locating yourself, but I can only write about myself and hope you resonate. This week has been an education in financial terminology I've heard for years but am finally hearing explained. Frankly there's a part of me that lives back in the 1950s. People go to work, get a paycheck, put it in the bank and maybe set up a savings account. They may have a single credit card and use it sparingly, paying it off in full every month, and consult a sound family budget weekly.

Never mind that I don't live this way, but I do think this way. And there's the problem. I actually learned my lesson the hard way with credit cards and for the most part charge everything to a debit card, which is just cash in plastic.

But I currently have only one secure savings "instrument" and it amounts to less than a month's overhead. In short, I live by the sweat of my brow; I depend on my work to pay the monthly bills and I'm not earning enough to meet the monthly numbers. This means that for the first time ever I am doing such a drastic spending plan and debt consolidation that my lifestyle of the past thirty plus years is about to change beyond my wildest (and probably most fear-filled) dreams.

Honestly I do not know right now what life would look or feel like living exactly within my means. From here it looks like poverty living. It feels reductionist and small, without vision or hope, in a place of defeat, devoid of opportunity, within a cocoon of depression and lackluster energy.

Hmmmm. Is there another way of looking at this? Is there any tiny ray of light in such a dark picture that something creative and expansive and life enhancing could emerge? I don't know yet; I'll keep posting on this as I do not wish to resolve that which is in flux and cannot be tightly and neatly concluded before its time. I will say this: there is some measure of comfort in the big downslide. I am not the only edge person out there. There may be comfort in numbers and we may work this out together way better than alone.

Just A Job

2008-09-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

We work not just for money, but for a large variety of psychic rewards. Nowhere is this more evident than with people who retire and make themselves busier than they ever were as "employed" members of society.

The ripple effect of work comes in the experience of community expressed in the terra firma of belonging. When we belong to a working community, we are part of a group, part of something larger than our small and vulnerable selves. We are, for better or worse, connected to a system of people organized to achieve a common goal. It is in this psychic circle that we find ourselves loyal to the others with whom and for whom we work.

In the world of work of thirty to forty years ago and way back through the evolving workforce of the 20th Century, people were hired into jobs for which they could expect to remain for some fairly large measure of time. Today, Manpower Inc is the largest non government employer in the US. This is primarily a temporary agency. A large number of people today work in contract positions, brought in to solve a problem, address a specific need, but with no added benefits other than their hourly wage or contractual financial limit.

And enter the thought: it's just a job.

Although it's wise to take a deep breath and fully accept that the caring, nurturing employer has long since left the stage, it helps to see what we've lost in this and how we cope with that innate lack of belonging to a group. In my case, I have just expanded to three "jobs" each of which has deep personal rewards emanating from use of my talents to contribute to the greater good and get paid in doing so.

But what's missing is a deep sense of loyalty to any of these entities. Not one of these "jobs" provides benefits. Not one of these jobs promises to be around a year from now (yes, for themselves, but not necessarily for me). Contracts are temporary and renewable, depending on the flow of business, none of which is in my control.

How do I, or for you dear reader, create that sense of belonging and not just show up, deliver, walk away as if it was someone else's responsibility to own the system and give back to it more than the minimum? In the old paradigm there was a pressure to devote a certain degree of thought and even emotion to the organization, or at least to its people. In the new paradigm, it's way easier to get to the divisive "every man for himself". No matter how nice the people you work for are, there is still no structural framework to act as your safety net.

I have no answer for this, just questions. It's just a job may be a way to keep from getting duped and dumped or it may be a way of driving a wedge into our own well-being at work. I hear those words as defensive.

Harder to write it than to read it

2008-08-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

Every time I'm impelled to behave well by, in fact, adding material to my blog, I have to face the exact same demon: WORDS!

Think about it: words swirl through our minds all day long. We probably have the exact same thought fifty or more times a day. "I'm hungry; where's the bathroom; how am I going to pay for that; has the dog been walked; ohmygod, everything I need for tomorrow is in the cleaners!"

Most of our daily appetite for words are banal and mundane and most assuredly cliche. Even those of us who are pretty good with words (like writers) dry up when we're put under some pressure, especially when there is no paycheck on the table. Blog writing is especially hard. If we have no big following or we don't know who's reading because they don't comment, we're writing in a vacuum, looking into our own navels and saying what's on our minds (and remember the list of useless thinking I gave you above).

Yet I read the blogs like an addict. Some are punishingly biased and consequently not worth the time they take to even boot up. Others are open, nuanced and enlivening. I read Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish daily and David Kuo on Belief Net several times a month (and that's about how often he posts there). But suffice it to say, writing is hard work, not casual play. But if you have the gift of words, you are compelled to write now and then. Invitation: comment!

Authenticity and the 2008 election

2008-08-26T14:49:00.000-07:00

It seems that the pundits who are worth listening to (the PBS dudes who talk to Charlie Rose at 11 PM after the children are asleep) think that the only quality any presidential candidate must exhibit to win the US presidency is the power to connect to the everyday person. This makes sense on its surface, but only if you believe the everyday person is actually a voter!

I wish I knew the average American. I don't. I'm too long in the Northeast to recognize the lunchpail Democrats in Ohio as the biggest voting bloc, the ones Obama HAS to connect to, or even women over 50 as so terribly significant (and that's a category where I fit).

I don't recognize the description of rich which Obama gave at the Saddleback forum as over 250K (McCain said over 5MM). I live in Boston and I can figure out how to live on under 100K and still feel rich. I lived on under 12K thirty years ago and I shared space in Manhattan with a roommate and went to museums and outdoor music fairs. I always had plenty of food to eat.

Average Americans are rich by any standards in world terms, but we don't (want to) know it. The statistical comparisons are staggering. If Obama doesn't raise taxes (or Mc Cain) we won't have an infrastructure to leave our children. Our children and grandchildren are paying for a social security they will never get to use. It's time for America to get authentic about how rich and poor we are. We live in an unfair, unequal society and we must sober up from the silly stuff of this election. I think we can handle straight talk. and I think the way to connect to the average American (whoever that is) is to appeal to our sense of fairness and inherent appreciation of truth in the face of shared sacrifice.

I await hearing the details of the Democratic platform. Will it resemble the way we live or will it pander to the imaginary lunchpail people? These are not selfish isolated folk. They are "can-do" and they will follow a real leader. Are we ready to actually elect someone good, or just settle for a loser we deserve?

Tough stuff

2008-08-12T15:16:00.000-07:00

This is Tuesday's complaint department:

I have a part-time job where I have to maintain a sane and healthy working relationship with people who "supervise" my work (but can't read my attitude) from 1500 miles south of me. It's a virtual call center for career professionals and I attempt to make sense of a complex network of instructions that occasionally becomes unwieldy. My "boss", the woman who hired and trained me, has to manage 186 people remotely from her perch in North Carolina. She's busy ( she IS a Vice-President, after all), and she has more email than anyone ought to have (or so I hear). She announced on one of our multi-city teleconferences about two months ago that she doesn't get to all of her email. This means she doesn't answer inquiries, so don't bother to send any. As one who had already sent her unanswered email six weeks prior, I can attest to that!

So today I needed to find a document she had sent about two weeks ago and I emailed the head of the administrative staff to get the old info for me to make a meeting connection on August 25th. This admin lady couldn't help me, but asked how she could help me get to the source. So, I emailed the Source, the one who doesn't open her emails, and voila! MADAME picked up the phone and called me. And she was offended I was sending out email announcing she doesn't answer her email!! Well, with that phone call, I guess she showed me!

What's wrong here? It's that I called her on her bs with not answering email and she woke up! God forbid anyone should notice that if you announce on a teleconference that it might take you six weeks to hear back from her that you would seek to get her ear by going around her to anyone who could help you out!

I have a big problem with poseurs! Straight talk about relationships that have to be maintained long-distance is essential for s smooth working relationship. I was kind in apologizing for her misunderstanding that I might have sounded like I was complaining about her, but it's time to get the big picture: hire an admin to read your mail and respond or I'll call you next time!

Big Stuff

2008-08-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

My book (and my blog) is nothing if not about building character, and not to be confused with backbone, stiff upper lip or any of the prep school idiosyncrasies.

We spend our lives in behaviors developed from character and we travel over and over again back to its monumental maintenance. Every once in awhile, we get the blessing of a really bad event, (did I say blessing?) or culmination of a series of events, habits or lifelong behaviors that hits us with a WHAMMY!

These are the times that try men's souls. And women's I might add.

I am in the midst of just such a life altering event. Predicament is more the word, for events happen and pass somewhat quickly; predicaments take time to unravel and finally straighten out. The details of my messy experience are not important here: you have one yourself; you will have one soon or you've had one in the not so distant past and you'd rather not discuss it, much less remember it.

The question is what happens on the journey through the mess? How do I behave? I'll give you one simple example. I had to call a lawyer to begin to take care of my predicament, and I was given a referral of someone from a friend who hadn't paid the gentleman when she used him four years ago. I was embarrassed to tell him I couldn't name my source, but I went ahead and told it straight. I wasn't free to tell him. I had rehearsed other nonsense, but told the simple truth.

The victories we find in life come from very small steps, even when we clean up very big mistakes. We die a thousand deaths as we stumble through our years, but we wake up and make a tiny dent in our integrity, one simple sentence at a time.

Chain baby pictures

2008-07-31T07:28:00.000-07:00

The chains are far reaching in my email.

This morning I got a new one, a pithy invitation to be a better person, love my neighbor, forgive the people I'd like to see dead or maimed, speak up with courage, seize the day (carpe diem for you Latin lovers), forgive myself for everything (including how I will ignore the guilt-producing words to send this back to the one who sent it to me (like Santa Claus checking it twice).

I think we've totally lost it with the Internet email chains. Cute baby pictures (no African Americans among them, and one half-Asian child passed the litmus test) don't motivate me to be a better person. Most of my bad behavior is with my own husband (as opposed to yours). I wake up to my better angel when I remember that he doesn't put the lid down (you know what lid I refer to) because he was many years in the Navy and there were no girls around and we raised two sons and the "seat" was never put in the covered position. I was outnumbered.

When I let that go and move on, I'm a better person. No email chain will assuage my conscience of my everyday bad behaviors at home.

Chain Letters on the Net

2008-07-10T16:51:00.000-07:00

I'm moved to address why chain letters trolling the internet are so difficult for me to pass along. I just received one from a dear friend whose way of life and way of thinking and giving of herself to the world I have long admired. But...I cannot pass along the Mother Theresa prayer she just sent that has the obligatory addendum to send it to eleven others including herself and see what happens in four days. There is an implied message of a miracle on the four day horizon.

I have never found out what would happen in four days. The three or four times out of the thirty or forty opportunities I've had in the past five years and have mostly rejected, I can't recall anything good or bad. But where I do feel bad now and have always felt is in breaking the chain. What four day miracles have I aborted for others, including the ones who have so naively sent their chain letters to me?

The question is this: Is NOT answering the call to passing along the prayer a deliberate F-U to faith, to the spirit of Mother Theresa, to the spiritual forces in the universe that make good things happen to good people (like me?). And the alternative: is not passing along the Mother Theresa prayer an omen of an ill-fated happening around the corner or of the current state of unrest in my life finding a permanent home and becoming a curse, an irreversible curse that will leave me in unrelenting doom?

What if something good happens to me in four days, something spectacularly good (I inherit $10 million from a relative I didn't know existed) What if something truly bad happens? (I will not give an example; I'm superstitious). Does any of this have anything to do with the Mother Theresa chain?

The fact is maybe I'm a latent existentialist: I've been pretending to be a person of faith, but I'm really just a spectator.

Last night I was with a group of friends discussing the nature of courage against the fear of failure. Unfortunately, all the examples of courageous heros from the last two centuries have been assassinated: Lincoln, Kennedy, King, Gandhi. I have the incredible hubris to think that if I courageously step out of my box, I'll be assassinated. And that's worth pondering. But Mother Theresa died of old age. Ooops, Maybe I can still retrieve that chain prayer and figure out which ten friends I would offend by sending it along.

I Don't Need Your Money

2008-06-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

Wow! I said it.

As a career advisor, I hesitate coaching anyone into a maverick posture when they have a job offer at 20-40% less than their last paycheck, but they have the clock ticking against the three months severance from their last job and their mortgage and their child's college tuition payments are on the horizon for several more years.

BUT... It's OK to think that "I don't need this; I don't need to settle; I can keep going until I'm in a financial squeeze that compels me to take that much less".

The same is true for consulting fees. This happens when potential clients attempt to nickel and dime you. In my wedding celebrant business, I get calls from people who have seen my website and tell me they've read the range of fees for my services. On the website, I do not outline point for point where the charges break down, but if I start at the low of 250, it's strange to hear a groom tell me he's having a wedding with 100 guests at the most expensive hotel in this city and he wants to pay me no more than 150! There is nothing wrong with shopping price, but there's an image issue and a values issue here---this groom would not ask his hotel caterers to serve jello mold for dessert or ask his photographer to use discount disposables, to cut costs. It's just NOT DONE. He knows this.

I don't need his money, even though I had that weekend open this summer. At the same time, there are others who engage my services for 150. Who are they? These are people like a couple I married in May, who came to my house and in my meditation room said their vows. I gave them a keepsake copy of the standard script, took pictures for them, had fresh flowers at the front door and found small tokens to decorate the ceremony room to reflect their Latino nationality. My services were their biggest expense.

It all comes down to this: none of us needs anyone else's money, whether we're in plenty or in want. We need to earn a living and money shows up when we contribute to the greater good. So remember this, not as a defensive posture, but as an empowerment and a sign of inherent trust.

Long time away

2008-06-13T06:14:00.000-07:00

In the blogosphere I've been out of touch a very long time. But issues of character don't rest.

It's no secret I have a small enterprise as a wedding officiant, which I participate in on many weekends from May through November. I have an initial meeting with prospective couples that takes about an hour, they and I sign a simple contract, and I proceed to develop a wedding script for their ceremony in the not distant future.

This coming October I have most of the month booked, but for Friday evening weddings. I recently interviewed a couple who are seeking an officiant for their Saturday wedding, which would mean two on that weekend. Sometimes couples decide right then and there to hire me, they make a deposit, and the entire process begins immediately. Other times, they walk away, contract in hand, and say they'll let me know. Most of the time when they walk away the deposit arrives within a week or so.

I have a friend who has a marketing background and she considers me timid in my marketing behavior. She suggested that I tell couples who hesitate that I have another couple who are considering the same date, so I need to have a quick decision. I said I can't do what she suggests. Why not?

Well, as I've always said in my work as a career counselor, never lie when the truth is sufficient. Never mind the laws of karma. This couple knows that I have most of October booked and they surely might have guessed that I'm not worried if they decide not to use my services. Given the premium of October availabilities for wedding officiants, the likelihood I will have that date booked by someone else is still high.

But the larger point is the issue of character and integrity and the high cost of "little white lies". Even if that suggestion might have helped "close" the interview with a booked and deposited date, what would it have done to me? My friend is not a scheming woman full of lies and deception; her suggestion is common among some in the career counseling field who suggest you tell a potential employer you have other offers on the table when you only have potential interest, but nothing solid.

The issue is this: little lies put you in the habit of fuzzy thinking, of easy compromise, of clever mind games. And, one little habit begets more. Sooner or later that little white lie will be repeated in another circumstance. It gets to be fun to get by with this creative way of living and eventually the lies get bigger and soon enough, you're in the business of self-deception.

My late friend Bob Clampitt, founder of The Children's Express newspaper, told me something thirty years ago I've never forgotten: do not believe, and thereby become a victim of, your own PR. The cost of the trick of indicating other business pressure to force a decision from a buyer sets one up to believe in an importance that isn't real. This sets character issues in motion that will only compound an already difficult world. Leave it alone. Trust the universe to supply you with what you need.
Character is the coin of the realm of having a life worth living. We ignore these small opportunities at our peril.

Words Matter

2008-05-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

You all know we're into crazy silly season in the Democratic race for the nomination, and here we go with another major gaffe, this time from HRH (Her Royal Highness) HRC. She had to say the word assassination, referring back to RFK's run for the presidency into June of 1968 as a way of explaining why she wants to stay in the race until the last primary in June 2008.

I will refrain from my views on where this came from in her psyche, but I will say this: words matter. Words are powerful little utterances that have a way of revealing our thoughts, our intentions, and even our subconscious wishes. Given the immediacy of YouTube and the internet, people in public and the words they speak are scrutinized like never before. We have "God damn America"--..."Bitter and cling to their religion"..." hard working Americans, white Americans...". We have the macaca moment that brought down a senate candidacy.

So, how do we sharpen our ability to choose our words well, to say what we mean and speak with fairness, with caring intelligence and in a way that does not for a second diminish another human being? Saying something that reveals our own naivete is something that we can correct by trail and error, but saying things that diminish another can lose us friendships, collegiality, family bonds and business relationships that we may not be able to recover. We don't have the luxury of trial and error when it comes to speaking into relationship.

And that's the heart of it all. Everything we say and write has an original context of relationship. Even when we must be critical, there is a way of saying important words that leave the other person whole and able to hear us. This is where the work is.

Chaos and Order

2008-05-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

Chaos and order are the ruling energies of the universe, the twin partners of progress. At our best we live in continuous chaos and we seek ongoing order. Chaos represents the daily ups and downs, new and unexpected events, emotional turnarounds and surprises that come our way hour after hour. Chaos is obvious if we suddenly find ourselves in a system wide traffic lights failure in a traffic jam during peak drive hours. Order is everywhere as well, but we seldom stop to notice. The same traffic jam has been thought through and there are stop signs and traffic lights that actually do work most of the time, yellow lines and crosswalks, all of which put order into our driving.

We have (controlled) chaos chopping onions and mixing the cheese into the macaroni, and order is restored when the dishes are done and dripping in the drainer. A higher order is achieved once the dishes are dried and put back in the cabinet, only to turn back to chaos for the next dinner's use.

There's a degree of chaos even writing a blog post. First, ideas circulate in the mind. Then inspiration dries up and a panic of chaotic proportions might set in. And then we start to write, go back and edit, and re-edit, and order arises into a (we hope) somewhat cohesive message.

The good news is that neither the chaos nor the order is permanent. We are asked to keep awake and on our toes to find and face the chaos and then do the same to find and utilize the order, only to surrender the brilliant solution to the next inevitable problem. The key words are impermanance and awake. The joy of life is in that awareness of being in the middle of both the chaos and the order. It's a dance, and need not be taken seriously.

Job Loss

2008-05-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

The loss of one's job ranks high on the stress scale as fundamental to human well-being. My last post addressed this around the need to belong to something bigger than our own small world.

I have opportunities as a career counselor to engage with people who encounter the rough world of downsized businesses. Some see the "reduction in force" as a blessing; some react with resignation; and some are enraged. It is this third group I want to address here today.

All people have emotional responses to loss, and ordinarily we have or at least are encouraged, to take the time to deal with the pain of such losses. We have read of the extremes where someone who is laid off goes home for the shotgun and comes back to massacre his boss and/or his colleagues. This is rare, but the feelings of such rage and its subsequent revenge reside in most of us, but are transmuted into healthy action through the willingness to let the shock and loss go through a natural source of healing.

To mitigate against the negative residue infecting the next positive steps which must follow one into a healthy career transition, I recommend taking time off, disengaging completely from even thinking about work. I strongly suggest a mental health break. Just last week I did this for myself, not taking time away for job loss recovery, but giving myself a "yoga" break for having completed one large assignment and flowing right into another, very different and challenging new one.

It all comes down to this. Energy, rich and peaceful psychic energy, feeds a job campaign in highly positive ways. The angst we feel is lowered to a manageable level and the persona we project to others is more appealing. Jobs are won and lost not on the minutia in a resume but in the connection of people to people. Take time off, even if it's three days. The renewed energy you gain will be timeless.

Why Do We Work?

2008-05-12T06:21:00.000-07:00

Maybe I just filter everything in one direction, but it seems like everywhere I go, people are talking about their job, their job search, their joys and struggles with volunteer work.

I have long believed that we don't work for money; we work to find out who we are and what makes the world work. Money is both a fuel and a reward for our work, but we actually work to become more fully human in whatever way or through whatever means we find.

I have a friend who is a nurse and who was recently laid off. She's in her 50s, has no children or grandchildren and is frantically bored. She is a gifted home decorator and a highly compassionate friend and daughter, so there is no end of "activity" to draw her attention. But she is anxious about her unemployment, albeit busy with these spare time demands. She wants to get back to a "job", one with all the potential stress, structure and protocols that come with her profession. She is financially quite comfortable, so money is not behind her anxiety. What does my friend get from a job she cannot get from other kinds of work?

Her profession has given her a trajectory of accomplishment that she can summon up and point to, one where she has learned by education and by trial and error how to exercise good judgment and take decisive action. Her profession has given her a mantle of identity, an understandable narrative to navigate the social sphere, a way to belong in the world. This belonging is at the heart of the anxiety for her and for many. She is no less useful or productive for the fine craft work she does in her home, nor for the necessary loving care she provides her elderly mother. But the narrative of belonging resides in her profession. Belonging and identity and self-esteem are all wrapped into the same paradigm. The anxiety cannot be casually switched off when we become unemployed, but having some compassion for the human need for belonging is helpful to give oneself a little patience with the process and to allow for the ongoing contribution everyone makes when we have newfound free time.

Cancer, Bats and Hunger

2008-04-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

That was the subject of three out of four articles of the Boston Globe's Op-Ed page on Monday morning, April 28th.

They were all three connected; at least I could see it today. President Nixon declared the war on cancer in 1971 and pledged 100 million for research. We've since spent 79 billion and cancer is still with us. BUT we are getting somewhere. Score one for the American spirit.

Bats, on the other hand, are moving on to the endangered species list, particularly the Indiana bat. some of you may think bats are funny looking and even scary, but they serve a vital duty: we are expecting a higher than average insect population this summer and bats feast on insects. Look for damaged crops coming from the ecological imbalance.

Finally, we address hunger (actually "we" is James Carroll in the Boston Globe, one of my favorite columnists). Our good idea of turning biofuels into a way of energizing our fuel-dependency has depleted the farm fields worldwide away from growing wheat and corn for food consumption and into plowing those fields for feeding our autos. There are food riots in Haiti, Cairo, and even Senegal.

Where does all this leave us? For me it puts perspective on almost everything I do. If billions on research hasn't solved the cancer crisis, maybe prevention puts a dent in some of it. The death of bats by a "thousand tiny cuts" can be stemmed by legislation fighting against land clearing for timber (which feeds our over-dependence on paper). And then we come to hunger.

Next Sunday in Boston we have the Walk for Hunger. There were half a million hungry people officially registered in Massachusetts for 2007. I'm never hungry for long. I have my sneakers ready.

Ethics and the college student of the 21st C

2008-04-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

I wrote recently how education is a spiritual pursuit, a way to uplift the spirit and inspire hope and creativity, to change the world.

Yesterday I went down to my university to pack up for the end of Spring Semester . I went through several hundred writing portfolios to toss those which were outdated for my obligatory storage. We are asked to keep student writing portfolios for one academic year. After that they can be tossed. I decided to take a few home, blank out their names and use snippets of their text to teach other students, both in a university setting as well as in business applications.

I actually kept about two dozen portfolios and gave each one a title for easy access.I put the industry or category titles in alphabetical order. what surprised me was the three titles starting with ethics. There were other portfolios I did not keep that dealt with the right and wrongs of things, subjects which might not be titled ethics, but certainly skewed in that direction. I mused on the way home how this is important to this generation. We boomers fought against the Viet Nam War.These millennials fight against an enemy as fierce as any on the American landscape. No wonder they're going for Barack Obama.

Education

2008-04-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

I believe education is a spiritual pursuit. As a nod to all the blog reading I do, here's a good quote from William Ayers, the controversial ex-Weatherman you've been hearing about related to Barack Obama. I think the guy is smart:

"The drama of education is always a narrative of transformation. Act I is life as we find it—the given, the known or the received, the settled and the status quo. Act II is the fireworks, the moment of upheaval and dissonance, the experience of discovery and surprise, the energy of remodeling and refashioning.

Act III is the achievement of an altered angle of regard, new ways of knowing and behaving, a new way of seeing and being.

Act III, of course, will necessarily be recast in some future educational encounter as a new Act I.

This is the fundamental message of the teacher: You can change your life. Wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, the teacher invites you to build on all that you are, and to begin again. There is always something more to do, more to learn and know, more to experience and accomplish. You must change your life, and if you will, you can change your world.

This sense of opportunity and renewal—for individuals, for whole communities and societies—is at the heart of all teaching; it constitutes the ineffable magic drawing us back to the classroom and into the school again and again. Education, no matter where or when it takes place, enables people to become more powerfully and self-consciously alive; it embraces as principle and overarching purpose the aspiration of people to become more fully human; it impels us toward further knowledge, enlightenment, and human community, toward liberation. Education, at its best, is an enterprise that helps human beings reach the full measure of their humanity".

William Ayers website, April 2008

wishful thinking

2008-03-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

And farewell to all that.I'm getting over the deliberate act of wishful thinking and it feels like a good fit to try on the robe of reality. I used to think that a regime change in the United States would salve our ills, but I've come to realize that this isn't so.

The current US fiscal crisis will be with us for quite awhile, as we have for too long depended on a single bubble (now it's housing and eight years ago it was the dot.com), and bubbles always burst, especially when we hold our breaths just long enough to hopefully get past an upswing with something to hold in our hands.

I have nothing to hold after this bubble, except to welcome my fellow Americans into my own reduced living condition. All the wishing for a better fortune has not made it happen, but at least I stopped worrying. It's actually time to start feeling good. Like Janis Joplin said in her song: "feelin' good's anther word for nothin' left to lose".

When all the dust settles we'll be different, but still fully human, and maybe even better people.

the content of your character

2008-03-23T17:55:00.001-07:00

This was part of a line from Martin Luther King's Letter From Birmingham Jail. He actually said he longed for the day when his children and grandchildren would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

We have a great example of just this just now. We have a man of color running for the Democratic presidential nomination, and he has revealed the content of his character. This is exactly what my resume book addresses. What on earth have you and I done, what do we stand for, what words of courage and imagination do we use every day to become more fully human, to edge just a tiny bit closer to the truth, to earn our "living" with the level of dignity we so long to deserve?

Since Senator Obama's brilliant and subtle speech, I have become more outspoken, more willing to say what can't be said for fear of offending, more willing to stand in my own truth and let it be that someone will get a nose out of joint. Thank you, Senator. This bloody battle with the Senator from New York might be worth it, if only a few people start to speak up about the hidden fever of racial tension we still experience in the US.

Race and America

2008-03-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

If you read the blogs you can hear every kind of opinion imaginable about the Obama speech. Most open-minded people who actually saw and heard the speech in toto praise the speaker for bringing the subject up in such a context of clarity and fairness.

What I liked about the speech (I sat through it all) was the sheer eloquence and courage of explaining something most of us fear to discuss among mixed groups (mixed races). After all, the laws protect all minorities (except gays), so end of story. But there is still de facto racism in all areas of the country and it's high time this disparity is addressed.

I like having this conversation. I teach college writing in a major university in the Northeast, and I was given the chance to design a subject matter focused course. I chose to teach the writings of prominent black authors of the 20th century. Having spent my early years in the south prior to the civil rights movement, I grew up being conscious of race as a permeating issue right beneath the surface, all the new laws notwithstanding. But my teenage students don't resonate with racism until we get deeply into writing about their raw observations. What I see in them is an obvious generational divide. Some of my generation, the same as of their parents and grandparents, still harbors white resentment. Their generation (everyone up to about 35) has no harbor at all. They grew up with mixed races and many of them, at least superficially, see a benevolent racially mixed atmosphere everywhere they look. But when they look more deeply, they see what's still there: Your advantage is at my expense and creates my disadvantage.

This is the most telling aspect of the speech. Until we have the conversation that mutualizes our understanding, we will not become as a nation a true melting pot and appreciate that we are in this together. We have nothing to gain from emotional distancing.

Prayer and gaming the system

2008-03-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I just don't want to pray. It boils down to wanting to keep myself responsible for living a life in right action and not leaning on a god to bail me out of my own "soup". I just don't want a rescue unless I deserve it, like I don't want my parents to get me out of trouble.

Perhaps the operative word is deserve. If we don't deserve good fortune, it seems that we'll find ways to avoid it. It's like having an attitude that acts as an invisible wall. But what if one has an attitude that is so undeserving that neither god nor man can enter and expand one's soul? That's not self-reliance: that's an upside down ego tanked in the detritus of low self-esteem. So then it comes down to this: if you're feeling blue, go ahead and ask for help: god is used to it. Maybe it's those moments of low self-esteem that are deliberately put there as a reminder to be humble and ask for help.

Mostly, I don't want to pray until it gets really bad; but maybe the god of my understanding is still there, still listening, even when times are good, even when I feel balanced and in sync, and maybe the prayers then are simple conversations, even gratitudes!!

Prayer, humility and faith

2008-03-08T07:19:00.000-08:00

I often wonder why prayer has such a mixed ambiguity for me. On the one hand it seems that if I pray, I imagine "someone" very powerful "up there" making all the decisions, and I'm seeking perhaps an undeserved favor. Who am I to receive a special request just because I asked for it? What am I doing to earn this good fortune (or more commonly, this reversal of bad fortune)?

But I'm seeing now that prayer does include a degree of humility. We can't see the One to whom we are praying: we must believe that there is a Force out there who is all-seeing and all-knowing, and who holds a larger context for our destiny, which has to be a good one, in spite of the immediate evidence.

I am speaking here of prayer outside of a specific religious setting, the kind of prayer available to all of us. And this issue of humility is exactly the point of prayer. To even begin to surrender the idea that we don't have a clue, or at least the right answer to any number of life's dilemmas, begs for humility. And it is in this act of humility that we find a faith that must be created and then clung to as a means to make it through, to take the steps necessary to find the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Life offers each of us a series of hard choices: it takes humility to move away from rationality and into a place of faith in our own integrity, our own willingness to listen to that deep inner voice, the one which reflects the answer to our prayers. Humility is the bridge between prayer and faith, and strengthens with practice. I pray today for the humility to keep praying. Faith is not fantasy: it is the beginning of right action, the only stepping stone to creating a life well-lived.

Character as the measure of a good day

2008-03-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

I have my routines. Get the house in order early in the morning; eat healthy and try to make it three meals by the end of the day; do my most concentrated business work early in the day, and don't leave my desk till the job is (mostly) done. Think ahead to meeting notices and get the emails out before noon a week ahead. Get to the gym before dinner.

But there's one measure of effectiveness that's always in the background: take on the difficult conversation and get it out of your conscience' way so that everything else is just a check mark on your to do list. Tonight, after a long day of good hard work, I was ready to bolt for my nightly workout. My husband wanted to talk. I knew I had to listen and I had some things I wanted to tell him, but I didn't know how to start it up. I was lucky. He started in and I listened and moved closer to some difficult, truthful points slowly, but nonetheless fully.

Without having planned it directly, or worried about how I would do it, I had the difficult conversation tonight that would open my evening up to a sense of peace and completion, one that I would not have had otherwise. And this is the way I now must live my life. If I achieve all my goals but still have a nagging conscience, a sense of words not spoken, issues left in limbo, half-truths holding together hidden secrets, and all of this keeping love and forgiveness in the dark, then I have nothing much to say about the value of my life. It's the courage to follow this path to personal freedom that marks the measure of our character. For one small conversation, this was a good day. All the rest is just routine.

Pinning our success on our children's

2008-03-01T17:32:00.000-08:00

It takes a few years to get there, but with some repeated effort over time, jealousy toward other people's children can disappear.

When I was a young mother, my friends and I were quite competitive, without ever admitting to be so. If one child in our circle was reading at age five, there was an anxiety that one of us might have a little genius on her hands. Would my child be a reader soon? By middle school there were those children who were becoming well-rounded: playing in Little League, acting in the school play and winning at least third place in the junior high science fair. And if that kid was good looking, without acne, temperatures rose again. How would my child keep up? When the college acceptances came along, there were those who went to the Ivies and those who went to state schools and even a few who didn't go to college at all.

And then they left home and did the remainder of their growing up on their own. Our anxiety settled down. Our job was done and whatever configuration of young adult was before us, there was nothing left to do. What's different now is that each of our children has succeeded in his or her own way. Everyone caught up to reading and none of the Little Leaguer's (boys and girls) ever became a star athlete. The happiness for each child's success resembles the happiness we have for our own success: our children did not increase our own self-esteem as we had hoped they would. Their successes and failures belong to them, as those same aspects of normal life belong to us.

Integrity and Unreasonableness

2008-02-28T11:31:00.000-08:00

How do these two words relate? They come together at the intersection of honoring one's word. It is unreasonable to keep one's word.

Integrity is to make whole, to bring together disparate parts; it is considered a quality of being honest.

Now most of us never would describe ourselves as dishonest people, for that implies a pattern of lying or subterfuge. But we in fact break our word far more often than we even notice. And we have a plethora of excuses to explain away just why we couldn't possibly stick with what we said we were going to do.

There's something about reasonableness that appeals to us as acceptable, especially when it's our own reasonableness and not someone else's, on whose solemn word we depend. After all, if we have the reasons why we couldn't deliver as we said, we can escape blame and keep the flame alive, the next expectation, the promise of a better day, a second, third, or fourth chance to deliver. Mostly we grow blind to our own excuses and listen to our own reasonable explanation for our difficulties.

Unreasonableness, just at the level of keeping our word, can be uncomfortable, even dangerous. We can make promises but in the moment of action, these can look overwhelming.

I once promised my best friend to put myself on the line with my husband over an issue central to my own integrity. It came down to his agreeing to withdraw a business plan that was so against my own needs and honor that I was willing to put my marriage itself on the line. I knew I did not wish to proffer an empty threat, but in the moment of confrontation I had to take a deep breath and take a stand. I did, for the first time ever knowing I would follow through on my threat, and he withdrew the plan. The danger for me was that his decision in another direction could have ended our marriage. But in that moment I was made whole. I learned what it was to keep my word, or more importantly to say only what I would fully stand behind--no empty threats.

It takes the courage to move beyond the reasonableness of fear and rationale of doubt to use our word as the measure of our integrity. We never can get there by gliding into it: it must be practiced as a way of life.

Robert Reich on the 60s

2008-02-26T14:15:00.004-08:00

This says what I recall so clearly, especially from the days of Bobby Kennedy when I was a young graduate student at Stanford.

Idealism of Realism

Religion in America

2008-02-25T11:50:00.000-08:00

A lead article in today's New York Times (Monday, February 25, 2008) covers the decline of formal religion in the United States.

...........The rise of the unaffiliated does not mean that Americans are becoming less religious, however. Contrary to assumptions that most of the unaffiliated are atheists or agnostics, most described their religion “as nothing in particular.” Pew researchers said that later projects would delve more deeply into the beliefs and practices of the unaffiliated and would try to determine if they remain so as they age............

In my work as a wedding celebrant, I meet couples continuously who describe themselves as spiritual but not religious. Most of these young adults were raised with religion, but abandoned the practices somewhere in their high school years.

This is no small issue for the older generation, for the parents of these twenty and thirty somethings. But somewhere along the line, teenagers will think for themselves and sometimes they rationalize their way into a spiritual framework that may be more open and accepting of larger ideologies than their family religion allows. I once spoke to a bride on the phone who used the following to screen her officiant: "Do you marry gay couples?" I replied that I do, but she had just described her fiance as male. I was a little perplexed. "I could never have an officiant marry me who has a narrow view of the right for anyone of any gender orientation to marry whomever they want."

I conclude from this (and many other samples I won't go into here) that single issues might become intolerable to some young people, and that a single issue, particularly indicating intolerance, can tip the scale. Tolerance is a hallmark of the current generation of young adults. This sends a message to the guardians of religious dogma. Open up to fresh air or watch the numbers decline.

Inspired

2008-02-24T07:16:00.000-08:00

This one has moved me to tears. Take a look and hold back if you can.

Idealism of Realism

A New Earth

2008-02-22T10:45:00.000-08:00

A good friend just sent me a notice that Oprah and Eckhard Tolle are doing a webinar on Tolle's book, A New Earth, for ten weeks starting March 3rd at 9 PM EST. There are 225 million people already signed up and it's free. I understand you do have to read the book, however. If you're interested, go to www.Oprah.com to sign up.

Why is this a good idea? This is a good book, and one I recommend. I read it last summer and reread most of it during the fall of 2007. I never reread any book, and rereading this one wasn't because it was hard to understand the first time. It was so practical and nourishing, I just wanted to stay refreshed from the same well.

What do I remember? It's about your life's purpose and it helps to get front and center with what's essential, what's at the heart of what makes you and me truly happy, and how we can find the doorways to that happiness everyday in the simplest of circumstances. The older I get, the more I see how to let go of old superficial goals: another trip to the Riviera, going first class on transatlantic flights, $200 dinners in Manhattan. Yes, those weren't my stated goals, but when they were present for me, I lapped up the luxury and felt deserving. ( And it's OK to feel deserving).

I don't see those luxuries these days, so how can I be happy? Remembering that my higher purpose is to wake up everyday and notice I'm alive, to be available to the chance for other humans to know they're alive, and that we all walk through this journey together. The randomness of our everyday unconscious behaviors doesn't have to rule. All of this is available to all of us when we come together on common ground. Tolle (now collaborating with Oprah) offers a conversation to do just this.

Meanwhile, I'll be picking this book up again soon and writing up more this coming week based on his work.

check out: ellyjackson

2008-02-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

This week, February 15 to February 21, I'll be posting daily to my other blog: ellyjackson@blogspot.com. I'm keeping my word, but placing my words on another blog.

Back to you all next week!

Score one for coming through

2008-02-14T10:33:00.000-08:00

This is the time for some indulgent self-congratulations. Last Thursday I declared I would post material here every day through February 14th. Well, I did it.

What does that mean? It merely says that in a field so fragile as the creative work of blogging (all writing careers are fragile, not only for the actual means of making a living, but also for the very act of writing itself), what you say you will do is as good as having a boss who demands performance or you're out the door.

Writers must get up every day and do the hard work of writing, which has almost nothing to do with inspiration, but everything to do with commitment and determination. As a writer (or blogger) you ARE your word! If you keep your word to write your words, you have a fighting chance.

My own struggle with writing has to do with seeking and rarely finding the free time to do the hard work of writing. Now, consider this: when you or I find a window of free time, what do we want to do with it? Work? NO. Hard work? Definitley NOT!! I seek to luxuriate in reading, bathing in hot bubbly tub water, calling a friend, preparing a special meal, catching up on housekeeping chores and laundry, grocery shopping, or, god forbid, watching more TV! So the shift has to happen differently, as a way to get into the habit of doing the hard work necessary to get to the joy of having delivered on my word and then the joy of having delivered words I might be proud of.

What I like about blogs for writers, as a means of getting oneself into the writing habit, is the fantasy that there are hungry readers waiting to catch that daily entry, that brief but pithy slice of thinking that will inspire or arouse their curiosity. So today I did it: I have a week under my belt of daily blog entries. And today I pledge another week. Onward to February 21.

When the mighty refuse to fall

2008-02-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

What on earth can we learn from the hearings around Roger Clemens' possible use of HGH? The jury is out as the hearings are on today, and the analyses of his passionate commitment to clearing his name spill out daily on sports and other news media outlets.

I cannot guess how this will turn out, but it's not looking good for Roger. Brian McNamee has retained in his basement the syringes from 2001 (seven years old, ladies and gentlemen!) and DNA may still be on these articles. With physical evidence, the "he said, he said" means nothing.

News reports say Clemens spent Tuesday (2/12) on Capital Hill lobbying various members of the congressional committee investigating him. Why? Without condemning someone whom I increasingly feel sorry for, I wonder what there is that leads anyone to believe that personal charm, persuasive lobbying, can matter when the cards are stacked at this level.

If in fact Clemens is forced to admit that he didn't understand the rules (say, what?), what makes him think that this investigation is simply a matter of interpretation? This smells of an Enron, (at least the hubris of the CEOs), or any number of events in the past decade, which indicate that sometimes when we rise to the top, we are insulated from holding fast and strong to ethics, logic, or examining the consequences of breaking or bending the rules to fit our need to stay on top of our game, maintain our status, or protect our reputation.

It's enough to make me grateful for my puny place in life, for my lack of climbing a ladder whose perch I could never have sustained. But still I look to my own hubris. I ask where am I assuming a special forgiveness where I can talk my way out of scrutiny. Is this embedded arrogance an outcome of a litigious society where a good lawyer can slice and dice the issues so well that anyone wealthy enough or fortunate(?) enough can get by with murder?

How do you know you're happy?

2008-02-12T18:04:00.000-08:00

If you're having a birthday and people wish you a happy day, is it incumbent upon you to be happy? If someone says: have a nice day, must you follow that advice?

You know you're happy if you're not crying, not cranky, not falling asleep at 9 PM on an otherwise normal workday. You know you're happy if you remember that your complaining gets you nowhere and that you can generate your own well-being by remaining in a state of relative ease in spite of the circumstances. You know you're happy if you can lose a gold earring and look for it and then resign yourself that it just may be your turn (again) to give up something treasured in order to remember that the day you die, you will give up all the treasures.

You know you're happy when you remember that it's good to be alive, in spite of the dirty dishes, the long overdue dental appointment, the very uncertain and frighteningly changing economy. You know you're happy when you remember you are not alone, no matter how shameful it sometimes feels to recall your own inadequacies.

Political Overload

2008-02-11T09:28:00.000-08:00

When does political junkie-dom become an issue of addictive over-indulgence and a way to avoid real life life issues? I can't say exactly, except if you suspect this may be happening, it's already happened.

I noticed over the weekend that whenever I was upstairs on my desktop, where the Huffpo website is saved as my opening screen from Safari, I would get sucked right in to the Clinton/Obama/McCain/Huckabeee races in the next cluster of states in the endless run to the conventions and on to the the election of 2008!!!!!

It didn't hit home fully until I got my achey body over to the gym to grind away on the elliptical, and I glanced over at CNN to watch excerpts from Hillary and Barack doing what sounded like tired stump speeches in Washington State or in Virginia. They both looked bored and sounded boring. They both had the same old, same old sound and look.

Is this the post Super Tuesday super-sized media bloat? I thought I had recovered from CNN during the first Gulf War. No, I watched more than anyone's fair share during the Iowa and new Hampshire primaries, and followed Super T on PBS (oh, how tame and dull; how deliciously dull). Now it's not such an overwhelming number of primaries to follow: how dare the Democrats make this such a long, drawn out process. I have to go back to the disinterest of July 2007. But, there was something good about last summer: I got things done for myself. I paid attention to the issues of my life that matter: making a living, staying in touch with close friends, taking care of my home, wardrobe, diet, etc. It's not that these things have disappeared; they have just taken on a dull quality, not because the competition from electioneering is more important, but just because it's packaged with bells and whistles that make it seem of compelling interest.

It always comes back to balance. We must ask ourselves every day, before the veil of illusion covers our conscious life in the excitement of media magic: what's the world for me now? Am I drowning in entertainment, masquerading as political urgency, or am I advancing my conscious mind and personal equilibrium to put the stimuli of the media in its proper proportion? I know today where I stand on that question. Adios for today.

It's never too late

2008-02-10T19:23:00.001-08:00

Well, it's still the same day to keep your promise even if it's just around ninety minutes before midnight.

I have nothing to say except that there's a recession in the wind and people are more afraid than ever of not finding work or losing the meagre job they're holding onto right now. My next door neighbor is a Russian technology scientist who was making around 150 until he was laid off in November, but then he was picked up again as a full time consultant until they cut everyone out and shipped all their work to China. So he's unemployed again, but he says there are still more interviews ahead. He owns the condo we live in and he won't get much for it now with the Boston real estate market in such a funk, much like the rest of the country.

As for me, I'm losing my office at Northeastern U at the end of spring break, along with twenty or so other teachers. Who knows where they plan to put us, but I have some pretty good art I brought in which will now be relegated to my basement again, as I don't want to hang that much in my home yet. I always have more art than walls to hang any of it.

So, it's getting late and I have lesson plans for my early morning college level angels, who will be sorely disappointed that I haven't finished reading their first draft papers. But this was a busy weekend, full of tiny nagging details, one of which is writing for my blog, but I'm not complaining. Life is full of tradeoffs, and if you do everything perfectly the way you know you ought, you won't grow. You won't make yourself take on new tasks, new challenges. So there! I'm done and I made it just in time.

Lethargy

2008-02-09T08:22:00.000-08:00

Fear was yesterday's topic; lethargy is today's. Lethargy is defined as a lack of energy and enthusiasm. It was used originally in medical terminology, but has come around to more frequently describe mood in the late twentieth century. Mood itself is defined in one iteration as a sullen state of mind. A lethargic mood is therefore loaded with down-tempo, depressive like, dare I say "fear" centered overtones?

The more I explore the words I use to describe my current frame of mind, the worse I feel and the fiercer I am to get moving of this cesspool of negativity. What to do next? Well, as if there isn't a platter of duties to attend to, or a long list of quality of life items that could use my undivided attention: clean up my wedding business files to access the most commonly used templates and put the rest in a folder that saves me seconds and sometimes minutes in useless mining through old material every time I sit down to write the next wedding script.

Or, in short, get off my duff and do the next thing in front of my nose. Life is action, not worry, not endless reasoning. I have spent too much of my life reasoning through the options and not enough time acting on the obvious, for fear of making a mistake and/or wasting time. (See the last two days' postings). I'd like to say more, but my lethargy has disappeared and I have to get to work.

Overcoming Fear

2008-02-08T12:38:00.000-08:00

What does it take to push oneself just one step closer to doing the next right thing?

The next right thing often has an obstacle surrounding it when it stands as its own barrier to action: fear. Fear of something happening in any number of unforeseen scenarios or directions freezes most of us in place. Well, it certainly does that to me.

What fires up my fear today? Wasting time!! Today is cold and snowy and grey, not atypical for February in the Northeast. I slept in (Friday is my Saturday) and put off a scheduled Friday morning meeting until noon. Then my next plan was postponed to give my husband the car. Then the series of phone calls which were supposed to lead to another set of actions actually yielded no response, and so my plans have changed three times over since starting the day. It feels like I'm wasting my time.

True or not true? It seems like I can't be wasting my time if these changes are not coming from my own resistance. After all, I did what I said I would do and how dare I believe I can control someone else picking up the phone? Weren't the original plans just ideas, and aren't ideas flexible, made to move around and let themselves become other better (or worse) ideas with time and other people's energies and intentions intersecting?

We are either spending time or wasting it, but either way, time waits for no one. The suffering, the self-punishment for wasting time is itself a waste of time and healthy energy. Sometimes it takes me years to see a certain commitment that yielded great disappointment might have been a waste to begin with. But that doesn't add up to wasted time. We just can never know. That hindsight adds up to wisdom. This much is true. It helps to question the frame of mind that assumes wasted time when things change quickly or just don't go our way. The only time we waste is that set of moments we wish to escape from, not the ones we spend living in the possibility that meaning is available to us whatever is served up in front of our faces.

Keeping Your Word

2008-02-07T13:09:00.000-08:00

I have long forgotten, living so forcefully and fully in the reasonable, rational stratosphere of delusional self-interest, that keeping my word mattered to making meaning in my life.

I wonder, for instance, why I don't want to write daily in this blog. My excuse is that I don't yet know how to attract readers, or I've let myself remain ignorant of how to find out about attracting traffic, and creating helpful and mutually productive links. So if no one is reading (or watching) what's the point? Why bother? All of this connects to another way of thinking. If no one expects anything from me, I'm off the hook. I can breathe, as I will not be asked to be accountable for one more thing (there are plenty of other accountabilities, after all).

It occurs to me today that I have a basic "excuse" mentality, looking always to get more from life than I'm willing to put into it. This is not that hard to understand. I've had a great deal of disappointment. Haven't I earned the right, as well as the expertise, to take short-cuts? Actually no. That's just not how life (or blogging) works. I can't maintain an active blog if I'm not active myself. I can't create traffic---readers---unless there's something to read, and if I write everyday and begin to feel excited about the work, I may just produce enough to ask a few people to read and comment and even to help me find a way to attract more than just friends as readers.

So, what does this mean? I will write in this space every day for the next week. Every day. Everyday until February 14, there will be a posting in the blogspot. My word matters to me; perhaps my words will matter to others.

Obama, Oh Boy!

2008-01-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

This morning from my couch in Boston I'm one of millions of bloggers who are saying one thing or another about the phenomenon of the Senator from Illinois.

Why is there such passion around him? Is he merely an icon of possibility, a sketch of hope clothed in the diversity of his color and personal history? Or, does he represent something else, something like what an educated person ought to sound like, or what a person of courage ought to behave like? His unique detachment from the foray of the ugliest political rhetoric makes him a magnet of abuse from the status quo. In short, he's dangerous to power hungry interests and he surely knows this, although he may not be able to overcome the perception that he's too hopeful, too idealistic and too green to face the enemy (whoever that is, but it's guaranteed to be always out there).

What does he represent to me, a woman, liberal, Democrat, just a year older than Hillary? He's growing into the role he may be destined to assume right before our eyes. The NYT has an article on this today.

Obama's unfolding story and compelling appeal goes something like this: be true to yourself and there's a possibility there worth fighting for. Fight long, fight hard, but don't give up the essential you. Trust the best in others and leave the rest behind. And then let the will of God, manifesting through the will of people, decide that if it's your time, so be it. Take it on with pride and joy.

Loyalty: Priceless

2008-01-16T12:57:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about loyalty. It's not prized today in the workplace, and cynics will sneer at how marital loyalty, especially in the spirit of a Hillary Clinton, is for the weak or codependent. OK, so when is loyalty a worthy character quality? When is loyalty clearly a noteworthy characteristic to be cultivated, and especially at the expense of one's own precious ego? I believe it comes most alive in friendship. Loyalty among friends has no particular financial security (like a job), no long-term institutionalized protection (like marriage). Being loyal to a friend stands on its own as the price of developing character.

I see loyalty among my friends who never seem to forget me, even when geography and time zones separate us from easy relationship or casual connecting. They find a way to find me and keep in touch. They remember our last conversation, even if it was several years ago. They just pick up wherever we left off without rancor or blame when time has been a distancing factor. But that's the easier side of loyalty, even though it's hard enough in itself.

Another kind of loyalty may be uniquely feminine : the loyalty to take my side, if even just long enough to let me vent or express a perceived grievance against another. This doesn't mean turning a loyal friend into a YES (wo)man. It means that before offering a differing opinion, or before explaining how wrong I am, first make me right!

Loyalty demands a momentary sacrifice of ego . The rightness of anything can always be delivered in due time. First let me know it's safe for me to be my jerky self around you; then let me know softly what a jerk I am. That kind of loyalty is worth the price of friendship. That's one kind of loyalty that survives today.

Lessons from New Hampshire: Inevitability Loses

2008-01-11T10:35:00.000-08:00

I was having a creepy feeling all day Monday and Tuesday last week when there was such a sudden and confident inevitability to Barack Obama overtaking Hillary Clinton and putting her out of the Democratic race. It seemed way too volatile to be true.

As an artist, a spiritualist and a lifelong terminal optimist, I have never been able to shake a propensity towards riding the wave of something changing for the better. But when the "upset" happened and Hillary beat Obama, it felt like an appropriate reality check. If I was thrilled that his Iowa win meant she was not inevitable, I also saw that her New Hampshire win meant he wasn't either.

What's wrong with inevitability? It has the sting of cynicism masquerading as reality. We do know that death and taxes are inevitable, but pretty much everything else is not. The New England Patriots are not inevitable to have a perfect season: anything could happen in a single football game. And anything can move voters in a variety of positions inside the voting booth. No Monday morning quarterbacking will ever figure out exactly what turned the pundits into embarrassed dimwits by Wednesday morning.

Inevitability takes us all off the hot seat of having to wrestle with decisions. If no one has anything locked up because of a high stakes "machine", all the better for democracy.

When we just don't know how the primaries will turn out, it means we have to turn out at the voting booth and choose, and if we're lucky, we'll have clear cut guidelines, and this year the Democrats probably can't lose. Obama has less baggage, but Hillary's has already been exposed. I think the battle against political cynicism has been won---inevitability loses. That's real democracy working.

Bring out the sun

2008-01-05T12:45:00.000-08:00

It's January now for five days and it's a mixed sun and clouds day in the Northeast. Like so many New Englanders, I long for longer days and sunnier skies, but here we are. According to the Boston Globe weather site, we have only nine days of full sun in January, on average and almost four inches of rain. No wonder a few of us get cranky and take it out in road rage (Boston is in the top five cities for RR--Miami is first, then NYC, then Boston and then LA, and finally DC).

My dear friend SuEllen recommends full spectrum light bulbs and they do work better, but there's nothing like a walk in fresh air and sunshine to lift the spirit.

What's the spiritual equivalent of sunshine to lift the spirit? Simple meditation, for five minutes a day can't hurt. A calm inner life starting at the early part of the day is a good shield against the emotions that fighting cold and grey skies inspire. I frankly find meditation extremely hard, but I can do anything for five minutes a day. It's actually enough to set a calmer tone in motion.

So it's 4 PM on the first January Saturday in Boston and the cloud cover is in full resplendence. I like to write in this kind of weather. The grey area is where all things converge, where we can avoid extremes and find nuance. That's good for the soul, so with that I welcome one of the 22 days of clouds for a typical Boston January.

Iowa all the way

2008-01-03T13:46:00.000-08:00

I don't generally write about politics, but today it's too compelling to avoid. Character, after all, is always some kind of underlying issue in political campaigns. Fortunately, the C word has not arisen in the Iowa caucuses. The evangelical vote and religion have insinuated themselves into the Republican side and I have to admit, as much as I eschew any kind of religious political agenda, I like Mike Huckabee. Full disclosure: I'm a lifelong Democrat.

Why is Huckabee so appealing, especially in Iowa?

1. He's quietly religious
2. He has an aura of tolerance, rather than righteousness.
3. He has a gentleness about him that looks like he might listen to others, even those who disagree with him.
4. He's the only Republican who was willing to criticize George Bush.

Would he make a good presidential candidate for the national election? Probably not: he's too green. For the Democrats he might be easy to beat. But John McCain could be hard to beat; and he today promised (suggested) he would only stay in office for one term, very appealing to Democrats, if not everybody.

This is fun, but unfortunately it is not a popularity contest, so Huckabee might be tonight's winner but a poor choice for President. The same is true for Obama. I'm glad I have another five weeks before we vote in Massachusetts.

Absolute Madness and Waking Up

2007-12-24T06:30:00.000-08:00

There are those whose path to awakening, to enlightenment comes through the quietude of meditation. There are others who get to their nirvana by "blowing the mind" through artificial means. Finally there are the practitioners of mind-bending word crafting: the Werner Erhards who can scream you into an "ah-hah", or the Deepak Chopra's or Eckhard Tolle's who can lull you into the same place.

I discontinued my lifelong passion for wine and all things alcohol three years ago and have discovered from time to time what drove me to push down my anxieties into numbness. This particular Christmas shopping season has been my occasion for dropping into the madness of so many years' suffering.

Friday (the 21st) I pushed myself out of the ice-covered driveway and into the rain/sleet/snow to begin a shopping sprint (spree lite) that would allow me to participate in the annual ritual of Christmas giving. After fingering fake designer handbags, sniffing body creams with scents whose names may have been dreamed up on absinthe, I collapsed with my saran wrap thin shopping bags into an empty bench with another lukewarm coffee and let my body feel the pain of the day, the week, the season.

This is what I wouldn't let myself feel in my drinking days---the tightness starting in the center of my back and encircling round my ribcage to the front center ribs. I could feel it Friday and I have felt it on and off for the past three days. There is one thing I have learned on the pathway to waking up: this too shall pass.

And so tomorrow is Christmas day and then the day after is Christmas passed and past. I have delved once again into my (and our collective) absolute madness and awakened just a tiny bit to see it as a play, as theatre. Come January 1st I will be out of the cuckoo's nest and into the next annual marker of another year. But this quiet awakening, brief as it has been, is worth it.

End of Year Introspection

2007-12-19T21:14:00.000-08:00

It's a dangerous proposition to noodle around in deep internal psychological terrain during an already stressful season. Like right NOW. Nonetheless it's the perfect time of year to take full account of one's past year.

I'm not talking about New Year's resolutions; I mean tying up loose ends, crossing off unfinished items that have lost their significance by lack of interest or a strong enough vision to fire up desire to get it done no matter what. Last Saturday I organized a small group of professional colleagues and we did a guided meditation, some writing, and some releasing of lingering pain that had its primary tendrils in our heads.

It turned out to be a good way to kick off a string of completion activity: redesigning a budget for my son to pull himself out of struggling from paycheck to paycheck; declaring the tiny room I called the meditation room a storage room, since that is what it has become for the almost three years I've lived here and rightfully so; signing off on my website redesign and a new brochure to relaunch my wedding brand for the 2008 wedding season. It feels good and that's what counts. It feels better than receiving presents: giving oneself the gift of "moving on" is a liberation. This is not ,as I said earlier, new year's resolutions; what's done is done and 2007 marks the end of some unfulfilled intentions as well as the successful conclusion of others. Either way it's a fresh beginning to the next number of good intentions. Moving on happens with us or without us. I like to stay in motion.

Welcome resistance

2007-11-17T09:37:00.000-08:00

The only thing worse than getting stuck in your own mud (I don't wanna! I don't wanna!) is getting buried in it, resisting it, running from it, hating it, "dissing" it. Resistance, be it writer's block, calling up someone who may reject us, getting all our warm weather clothes put away and cold weather gear out to allow ourselves to face late November's cold, is a solid fact of being human.

Given the time of day, the time of the year or any kind of mood visitation, I will hate everything I love and love many things I think I hate. Running from resistance is like running away from your nose. It can't be done. Resistance is there; you use it without thinking about it and if you just allow it to be there, it won't dominate your life and you'll move on to a "flow" that you wouldn't have otherwise.

Resistance arises and begs to be noticed, embraced as an entity to be used for its own unique purpose, and then to disappear. It is a natural outcome of fear and needs to be treated as such. It's OK to take the time to let it in and not to treat resistance as the ENEMY! And even if it were the ENEMY, it can be negotiated with. "I'll admit you to the table as long as you respectfully watch me step out of my shell, my fear, my dread of the unknown." In short, pay respect to resistance and it will respect you. Resistance is the clay of character, the substance which we can mold to strengthen our resolve, so as not to succumb to inertia or entropy. Whatever we think we want, resistance will teach us how to get there, but we must first be teachable.

Be cool; be smart

2007-11-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

On October 31st at my beloved university I was robbed of my handbag and of course its contents: debit card, credit cards, driver's license and social security card. I also lost my university office door key and my university ID. At least we can change the lock. No, I wasn't mugged; this was just a careless leaving of my handbag in a room that appeared to be safe. NOT!

The bottom line is this: my good friend Heidi, who once had her car stolen and her apartment ransacked in Manhattan, all in the space of under two years, calls thefts like these paying the "vermin tax"---the high cost of living in urban areas, in melting pots, in cities whose socioeconomics vary from A to Z in any given neighborhood.Sooner or later there will be something to remind you you're not in Kansas anymore. Perhaps this seemed more true in the 1980s when she suffered her losses and the drug epidemic in New York City left everyday people on the street extremely vulnerable.

For me, the vermin tax is very like the IRS. Be careful, or the things you forget to remember will be summoned one day in an audit.

We all live every day with risk. I frankly hate the thought of my identity being stolen, far more than the inconvenience of canceling credit cards and getting my cash back for the $2000 heist the thief got to by cracking my pin number at the ATM within twenty minutes of the theft. But my bigger question is that of character: What can I do with this now? I can take a stand to not be afraid, to not look over my shoulder, to not draw conclusions of stereotype about the possible thief or thieves. I can commit to keeping my mind open in my wordlview: the universe is far more benevolent than malevolent. All that any of us can glean from adversity is its lessons, most importantly without blame in any direction.

Of course, I didn't need to carry around my social security number, but I did. End of story. We have laws in place against thievery, but robberies like this one are too commonplace and too numerous in big cities to ever be solved. End of story. I still have my life, my heart and my optimism. That's a prize no one can steal.

Looking for Heaven in All the Wrong Places

2007-10-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've posted and I have no excuses, except I've been busy, busy, busy, chasing obligations and following through on tasks. Admittedly, I do have to earn a living still, and jobs, work, require both effort and attention. And I've done OK with all that, but what does it mean in the end?

I'm exhausted, and it's not for not getting enough sleep. Heaven is not in the everyday grind of work, either its successes or failures or all things in between, but in the everyday opportunity to rise above the fray and remember why we're here. We're here to honor (and maybe even enjoy) the space of living itself, the awesome view from the perch of existence to simply solve problems, smooth over breakdowns, finish what we started and then STOP to BREATHE.

It's breathing that shows up as a challenge these days. I can actually feel myself gasping for breath. But every once in awhile when I stop and let myself do just that - BREATHE- I'm a different person, an aware person, not looking for heaven in the gritty details, but in the air itself. I love the opportunty and it's with me, and you, every day, all the time.

Religion and Politics

2007-10-14T07:50:00.001-07:00

There's a reason why we learned to never bring up these two topics in polite conversation. There was even a time in the last century when we learned the importance of polite. But that seems like a century ago.

Politics are often revealed in issues, in the stands we take about taxes or war. And university classrooms are notorious for opening up such discussions. I have a student who sits right in the first row every class. He's from Dallas and his parents are wealthy enough to have flown him home twice from Boston for two day family visits in the first six weeks of school. He was speaking up against taxes in an inadvertant reference I inadvertantly must have made in class, revealing my own liberal leanings. Ooops! It was right in my face.

This seems to beg the question: are religion and politics a subject we can casually brooch in a university setting, even when the discipline is in the liberal arts, but not specific to any religion or politic viewpoint? Or should we tread lightly, so as not to end up in the mire of unwanted argument? At a few local universities here in Boston, there are conservative student groups who are taking their complaints public against liberal leaning professors. I suppose this means we should rmember what our mothers and dads taught us: these subjects don't mix. It's time to run a more polite classroom. Or it's time to forget the importance of polite.

Character Development

2007-10-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

Remember when you suffered a loss as a child, or your boyfriend spurned you as an adolescent? Your parents or other well-meaning people consoled you with: suffering builds character. If this is true, what does it mean?

It's not suffering that builds character, but squaring with reality. And the facing of truth brings up the discomfort of turning away from denial, which sometimes includes extraordinary discomfort, if not excruciating pain.

OK. So why is squaring with reality and facing down denial so damned difficult? Character development is a messy business, and reality is not transparent most of the time. It can take years to see the writing on the wall. This blind-spot shows up in all the currect foreclosures for people who bought in to the fantasy that they would always be able to make their mortgage payments, even after getting a sub-prime loan. I understand these fantasies, but who among those losing their homes (read dreams, dignity, security) is sitting there happy to have a stepping stone to character? What value does this behemoth "character" offer?

Wisdom. Unless we completely throw in the towel, there's always another day, always another chance. We construct a fine picture of how life should look (often too much like a Morning in America campaign ad) and we come to believe that's reality. Then a crisis hits and we come to see what really counts. The fine art of building character, the end of which is wisdom, and the invitation to which is wisdom in action, is to see the mini-crises while they're happening, to read the tea leaves that offer us a thousand tiny warnings to pay heed, to wake up. I bet your mother never said it that way.

A Thousand Tiny Cuts

2007-09-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

I'm showing my university composition students the film, CRASH, winner of three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, in 2005. The film brilliantly cuts from scene to scene with tiny scenarios depicting biases too numerous to list here. This movie is full of equal opportunity slights, slams, epithets and worse. It takes the subject of diversity and shows a thousand sides, slips, cuts and injuries until the viewer can't help but see some part of himself among the various characters.

Diversity is not dead, but alive and well and operating continuously beneath the surface of our lives. And we'd better pay heed.

A colleague of mine recently dug himself into a hole that may eventually bury one of his client relationships. He runs a small educational learning business that subcontracts training to various constituencies within corporations. One such workshop he offers is an ESL (English as a second language) speech improvement course to people who identify themselves as less than secure in command of spoken English.

He visited another class offered for a current client, and proceeded to probe the Asian members on how long they had been in this country, as if that would in any way indicate their need (or desire) for speech improvement. One of the women took him on, asking him why he needed to know such a thing. The whole room froze. His simple request for information became an intrusion into privacy as well as an insult to the Asians present, indicating that since they were not native English speakers, they must have a problem.

He knows he made a mistake, but my colleague actually set himself up for something worse: now the woman who challenged him plans to go to HR and complain. He won't lose the current contract, but he may not get another, at least not from this client.

What does this all mean, and how does this relate to Crash? Beware of assumptions about people; we make them all the time and to our peril. Crash held a mirror up to Everyman: and that's you and I. My husband is 75, not retired, an avid reader, author and wage earner.He met a local politician in a nearby park who, not knowing anything about my husband, suggested he visit the senior center down the street since they had great Bingo opportunities. My husband instantly disliked this man and in the recent election voted against him. Why? It's a thousand tiny cuts that can make or break our success or happiness. We must all be aware.

Behind the wheel

2007-09-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

it's time to come clean. Although I hear almost daily stories about driving in Boston traffic, and episodes of mini-road rage, I must admit I'm one of the pack myself.

Yesterday I drove my son to his job downtown and there was a woman in front of me meandering through the maze of construction on one of our main thoroughfares. The usual two lanes were down to one, but her speed at twelve miles an hour meant missing green lights street after street. It wasn't until my 26 year old son, always freely outspoken, admonished me for tailgating that I realized what I was doing. Tailgating is nasty in my book. But, but, but..... all I was doing was pushing her along a little, reminding her that there were other drivers on the road with places to go, sometimes on deadline.

So I gave up, let go, and gave her room. Shortly she turned left off the boulevard, perhaps having searched for an opening and finally found one. (Or was she escaping the annoying tailgater right behind her?). Boston is a city full of tourists and other visitors, and it's sometimes hard even for the natives to finagel around construction, much less all the rotaries and one way streets.

I believe we can find almost every opportunity for character development every day we're right behind the wheel. When the speed of life is not the point, but the quality of every moment, it's crystal clear. Nowhere is there a better place to experience this exercise than out there on the road.

Another day

2007-09-24T04:48:00.000-07:00

What's in a day?

A day is a perfect microcosm of an entire lifetime. We awaken out of a dream and into the light. We stir, we move, sometimes slowly, sometimes all too quickly into activity, into preparation for the day's events.

However our work day is configured, at some point we gear up for meeting demands, challenges, tasks. Stopping every few hours for fuel, we move on, forge ahead, chipping away at one activity after another, ostensibly leading toward some purpose, often undefined, or simply long forgotten.

At day's end we unwind, let go of the higher pitched energy of the day. And when the engine is fully drained we return to the dream. We let it all go.

Why does it feel, at least for the first few moments upon awakening, like we have a second chance to start over, to make things right? Each day is a new story, a new opportunity to create a new reality. Of course, there are residuals from yesterday, but they are not solid; they're fluid and far more malleable than we usually allow. Today is a life.

Missing in Action

2007-09-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

Sunday's Boston Globe (9/16/07) had a terrific front page Ideas Section article on the loss of human purpose as taught in universities today. It boils down to this: the humanities has been hamstrung since the 1960s from teaching the classics (the Western Canon) and has allowed all issues of spiritual significance to become coopted by religion.

There is no bigger question to ask or to seek the answers to than the issues of why are we here. But philosophy is fading and other humanities courses teach a narrower view of life and its myriad problems.

It finally comes down to this: is religion and its practice and beliefs the only way to be spiritual? If the answer is no, how do we get to a spiritual well-being without studying the bigger questions through voices and viewpoints other than those possessed by the religions?

voice from the past

2007-09-12T18:49:00.000-07:00

I played a steaming audio interview today of James Baldwin (The Fire Next Time, and much more) in a 1979 tape from Berkeley, CA. There's so much in it, but what struck me particularly was his comment that the only way to live was to love everyone you meet, not to love Amercians as a group, but individual people (Americans certainly included), or in short, everyone you meet.

I'm going to play the audio again tomorrow morning, so I'll post a longer piece tomorrow afternoon on his extraordinary words.

resumes

2007-09-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Since this blog site has that word in the title, it may be time to address what is a heavenly resume. It's a resume to get you (and me) into heaven.

Now this presupposes there are jobs in heaven and then it assumes heaven will include "work", which is just what Adam and Even were condemned to endure on earth, having eaten that apple. Remember, they had to put on clothes and get to work. But this then presupposes jobs in heaven, where I imagine the use of this resume to be only about gaining admittance.

But suppose there were jobs waiting for us in heaven: what would they be? After all, the very least a job provides is a little respite from boredom (we won't need money to hold body and soul together). I see the need for Traffic Directors; after all, there are inevitably zillions of souls flying around up there. Road rage dies hard. Of course, if these TDs don't do a perfect job, we'll need Wing Repairers, like fine craftspersons from the Middle Ages, these renowned artists will refashion a broken wing, restoring it to its original lustre. But what happens in the meantime? There will have to be a heavenly version of Physical Therapists, health care providers who help us maneuver our celestial enterprise until we are Wing-Abled again.

What jobs do you think might be waiting for us?

I AM

2007-09-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

The other day while waiting in the beauty parlor, I opened a copy of one of those women's magazines and fell upon a quickie interview with Deepak Chopra. I had to get past the overwhelmingly good photo of Chopra, looking like he'd had a good facelift and is working out at whatever gyms are available to him in his busy lecture schedule.

The interview, I repeat a quickie and by default somewhat superficial, suprised me in its simple wisdom. The question was about stress and ways to access peace and quiet. His answer was to take a moment to stop what you're doing, and inhale slowly with the word: I. Then exhale slowly with the word: AM.

Wow. "I am" is also a way to disidentify with the labels and language that get us caught up in our heads and then subsequently in emotional inner turmoil. I've practiced this for a few weeks and it helps. Try it.

Practice

2007-09-08T05:35:00.000-07:00

Last night a friend called from the O'Hare Airport. On her way back from a business trip, she was delayed another 90 minutes. She was exhausted, bored and frustrated. After all, with the newly rescheduled flight, she would get home after 1 AM, and her plans for an early start on Saturday were crumbling.

This scenario is so familiar. I would have coached her on how this is an opportunity to practice "presence": be where you are when you're there; there's no place else to go. But instead I listened, just listened. I realized her time delayed in the airport was not different from my time delayed in driving through Boston traffic. I have for so long been on automatic in traffic (I pride myself on how well I maneuver through jams, bragging how I learned from New York taxi drivers), I forget that my cleverness often fails when there are no spaces to fill, just gridlock.

How much time (life) I have wasted sitting in traffic fuming, grinding away my peaceful inner self for something over which I had no control. Every once in awhile, I remember to practice. It's gift to accept time on its own terms; it's pure pleasure to stay alive and well through these moments of frustration. I'm on my way to the bank: I want to practice if there's a long line. Peace brothers and sisters.

Whose G*d?

2007-09-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

It's so hard for me to let G*d in.

When my childhood image of a sometimes benevolent old man with a long white beard, the one I cherished, honored and obeyed, invades my mind, I recoil. Who wants an old bag as a burden to carry, especially since this old man is not always benevolent?

At age ten, I told my father I believed G*d was everywhere. I still today struggle with that. I don't believe it anymore; I feel G*d's presence often in my direct experience. The experience, however, is not easy to describe, for it has no direct image of an outsider intervening in any positive or negative direction. In other words, it's content free. It's just a presence that tells me I'm connected to something larger than my fears, doubts, joys, wonders, thoughts, history. Most importantly, it is a presence that gives me a degree of confidence that is accessible and filled with peace, even in difficult circumstances.

If this G*d is so accessible to me, this same G*d must be accessible to all. This is where experience trumps belief. None of us can own that which cannot be owned.

Labor Day

2007-09-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

Today is another wonderful American holiday. It has special meaning for a variety of reasons typical to our way of life in an open society. Children return to school tomorrow or the day after. Colleges restart the full academic year. The Jewish holidays are soon; autumn is right around the corner. Light is changing and the weather is cooling, at least at night.

But with all these markers, there is something about this day unique unto itself. The real meaning of holiday is holy day, so today we make holy and offer a tribute to labor. How do we best celebrate, make holy, labor? If you're like me, you have some work to do today, even if you don't go to the office (all schools and most businesses are closed), but that doesn't mean the business of home and family aren't right in front of you and me and in need of attention.

Suggestion: use today to focus a quiet and open attention to all your work. What does that mean? When you finish a task, stop, pause, inhale, exhale before you move on to the next task. Put a space between activities to remind yourself you're alive and active, but not "caught up". And then, notice the peace still left in you at the end of the day. That's my plan. I'll report back tomorrow.

Beginner's Mind

2007-09-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

I like to think of myself as knowledgeable and professional, but that's really just my PR.

Last night I did my work (the kind with a public audience) and my husband was there. The last time he saw my work was several months ago and people were heaping praise on me. This time there were technical difficulties and some of my performance was not as smooth as usual. There were no major mistakes, just a matter of degree's difference, but still the kind that makes a leap from great back down to good.

I puzzled over it and looked for excuses and explanations of what happened. I overdid it; I didn't test the microphone enough, and blah, blah, blah. The truth in fact eludes me. I did my best and everything I could think of and it just wasn't my most impressive. End of story.

Bottom line, I love my work and it seems to love me back. In zen mind, there is just what is and everything else is just a story added on top. The technical things are easy to fix next time, but the second guessing is counter-productive. With beginner's mind, the next time out will be fresh and as if for the first time ever. I'll remember that.

I'm Right; You're Wrong

2007-09-01T06:06:00.000-07:00

I learned the crucial details of what this is and what it causes in human misery a long time ago. It has never been easy to move away from the I'm right/ you're wrong thinking or behavior patterns.

In his most recent book, Eckhart Tolle refers to the "pointers" to truth. This is a statement addressing the idea that there is no absolute truth, at least as far as any human being could fully come to know. G*d, or a Being greater than we are, is the Absolute Truth. But the ego thinks in absolutes and this fuels a false sense of security. Sometimes our closely held beliefs trap us and render us inflexible, making us forget that what we are grasping may be strangling us in the process.

This brings us to the right/wrong dynamic. We come into an us versus them quagmire. At its worst, marriages fall apart, friendships become strained for years, if not forever. Forgiveness, compassion, acceptance are farthest from our minds. It takes daily practice to stay aware of the right/wrong inner mind. Self-forgiveness is a good place to start. Calling a driver who cuts me off an idiot (just in my own mind) gains me nothing but a superior attitude and unnecessary anger.So what! Big deal! It comes up so automatically, all I can do is forgive myself, call it an impersonal mistake and move on.

This is a big topic. I'll return to it again soon. Peace for today and happy September.

Heaven on Earth: two views

2007-08-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

I used to think heaven on earth was in those rare and glorious moments when the elements of perfection lined up, when the circumstances were favorable and I was truly in the right place at the right time. Some call this: the moment that "fits my pictures".

This false notion of heaven on earth is as authentic as a movie posing as real life. In fact, I've heard people say that a perfect moment felt like being in a movie watching oneself enjoy the "scene". And the next description is that it is/was too good to be true.

It is too good to be true. Heaven can be felt, sensed or experienced only when we are fully in the moment--any moment--no matter the circumstance or even the emotional setting. I had a conversation with a good friend last night and it had moments of discomfort. She told me things about myself that were less than favorable, but she was right. Her thoughts were close enough to the truth that I knew this was good for me, something I needed to hear and that would make me grow, if I could hear it. I was in heaven. I could hear something and not defend myself.

We can practice the entry to heaven. It's here all the time, every day, every moment. It doesn't have to fit any picture. Whatever is in front of us is the picture of heaven if we're "there". Peace.

Other Practices

2007-08-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

One of the suggestions Eckhart Tolle made was to deliberately pull back the eager ego (my inelegant interpretation of his elegant words). What he meant was to look for opportunities to hold back from being "right", clever, to shine or to evoke admiration.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a woman who is concerned about a mutual friend who has cancer. I noticed how eager I was to let her know I had visited this woman, taken her prepared foods and driven her to hospital appointments. I definitely would have revealed all this in the past. But why did she need to know that? Telling her would have been taking credit and I could see this in the moment, so I held it back. It felt better to let the gift of caring stand solely on its own merits and let myself withdraw from a need for "strokes" from my friend on the phone.

This is practice in following spirit over ego, and I'm so happy to discover such a simple but empowering practice. Thanks to Tolle, once again.

Checking In

2007-08-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

Yes, it was work, but I made it through a day watching the inner conversation. Frankly, it was not that hard, but next week when my schedule gets busy, the inner voice will be much more active. And there's a good point. Is this inner voice more active when there's more outside activity?

It seems so. There's simply more agitation possible among large groups of people and fairly continuous interaction. There's also more inner anxiety possible when we meet up with people who have a history of annoying us or when we anticipate situations which have been traditionally stressful. How do we prepare for these? Daily practice in stillness and breathing and even morning meditation can help, but mostly it can't be prepared for: the moment happens and we're there or we're not. I have found the best way to keep still and peaceful is a form of forgiveness, mostly self-forgiveness. I set a goal of remaining present and then forgive myself every time I catch my attention wandering (this is quite often). This continuous forgiveness of myself and others is a door openner to peace.

I'm already forgiving myself for the irrritation of meeting with colleagues next week for a training day that I have found in the past to be mostly useless. This is progress and who knows, it might even be different this time?

Keep On Keeping On

2007-08-28T06:36:00.000-07:00

One thing that surprises me is that a lifetime of spiritual practice does "sink in". In my awareness of the inner critic, the little voice that tells me it's not quite right or it's good but not good enough, I forget that there are practices, imperfect as they are, that can be resurrected and utlized for spiritual well-being.

I can't overstate the importance of noticing the inner critic, the little niggling voice-over that has an almost constant comment on ourselves and everyone else in the world.

Some years ago I attended the School of Practical Philosophy in New York City. Included in the weekly lessons were practical suggestions to practice between classes. One of these was to watch the inner voice and avoid criticism of ourselves or others. I liked watching the voice, but criticism was hard to manage. I was confused between an honest evaluation of behavior or circumstances and the extra label (gossip, often) that overlays what unfolds in our lives. For example, you could watch a person making an unsafe illegal U turn and think it's a bad choice. That's a clear statement. But adding to it: drivers just do anything they want; people are in a race to their own funeral; I don't do things like that, etc. Now it becomes a distraction and a way to make ourselves right and another wrong. This extra inner conversation is a tough challenge for me.

But that's my job today. I'll report on my progress tomorrow.

Early Morning

2007-08-27T05:23:00.000-07:00

Over the years practitioners of yoga and meditation have told me that dawn and early morning hours are ideal for practice. This morning I awoke t 6:15 and let myself get up for good. I did a few yoga poses and sat for maybe five minutes in a watchful breathing meditation.

This was good. Except for the inner criticism that it wasn't enough. I have always done not enough meditation or yoga. I thanked the inner critic and let it go. It's just the ego wanting to tell me I failed. What did I fail? My good intention? I didn't set a time limit on this practice; I just jumped in. I stopped when I stopped and it was good.

More important than how long I meditated was the recognition of the inner critic. That is the purpose of the meditation to begin with. This time I cannot fail at meditation. It is available all day long, even in tiny thirty second increments. I plan to use this today as an entry into peace. And namaste to you!

Eckhart Tolle

2007-08-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

I just spent three days doing an R & R (Rest & Relaxation) at Kripalu Yoga Center in Lenox, MA. To say it was divine is to get it right. Yoga practice gets you back to your body, to its subtle messages, even to the sound of your heartbeat, and most importantly to the awareness of your own breathing. I have a peace within that is vastly different from a normal feeling of rest after a short vacation.

While there, I finished another Eckhart Tolle book. Once again, I am back to the heart of what matters--being here alive in the now. Once again I am reminded that there is no past or future, except in the mind, which is not the now, but an overlay of inner conversation commenting on life as it unfolds.

I wish I could say I'm a better person for this, but that's a lie. I just woke up to see more of my crazy ego running amok. I fight the "now" all the time. I have a chattering mind that thinks it's keeping me good company, but in fact only leads me to distraction. On the drive back to Boston, I became aware of how much of the trip went by without my noticing.

But Tolle reminds us that the awareness itself is key, not getting it "right" by being awake all the time. Most empowering was the message that when ego takes over and wants undue attention, it just isn't personal. This helped me forgive myself for inner criticism of people, a useless and self-damaging occupation. There's more, but I'll take it up later. Bye for now.

Letting Go

2007-08-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

I cannot speak with much certainty about physical pain, but I feel that with emotional pain patience wins every time. A balanced life seems to include just enough of doing the next right thing and then letting go of expectation for the consequences. Outcomes are not always predictable, though the temptation is high to believe that we can get the outcome we want just because we had the courage to do what was right. Would that it were that simple.

Is this what it means to expect our reward in heaven? I dont think so. There is an inherent grace in knowing within our own minds that we did what we had to do and that the next right thing is letting go. It is this letting go that actualizes our character. Expectations held onto tightly only suggest a manipulation of our circumstances, a way of playing God. This leads eventually to disappointment and cynicism.

Letting go and letting G*d is a slogan in the 12 step programs. It seems to work for anybody.

Religion as a Social Necessity

2007-08-21T19:43:00.000-07:00

Rabbi Kushnar says in his book, Living a Life That Matters, that people are drawn to join religious congregations because they would rather pray and worship with other people than in the privacy of their own homes. This implies that the social connection to other people plays an important role in practicing religion.

His assertion is true, but it speaks for all social groups, and there are people who so eschew orthodoxy that they feel closer to a strong sense of worship without a group identity to contend with.

One group that replaces a religious social group are the various iterations of twelve step programs. The meetings are centered on a spiritual awakening following the daily reprieve from alcohol or drugs. The faithful following of so many people in AA speaks precisely to Rabbi Kushnar's point. They make and keep friends among other AAs, and they have a mutual understanding based on the principles practiced as the AA way of life.

So the social aspect has to grab people who have very similar interests in their spiritual philosophy; otherwise the fear of "group think" or cultism will arise.

Gone Fishin

2007-08-18T07:44:00.000-07:00

I'm out on a boat today through Monday (20th), so I'll probably only write in a notebook, not electronically. Send me messages (please) so that when I get back, I can feel there's a reader out there!!

Quitting Isn't Failure

2007-08-17T06:49:00.001-07:00

With all the talk about how America can't quit Iraq, since we have never "lost" a war (forgetful of the last quagmire in Viet Nam), we can reflect on when quitting is just quitting, when it's being realistic, or when it's simply moving on from beating a dead horse.

I had dinner last night with a lovely young woman who asked about my career. I relayed how I quit acting in New York some years ago, after unsuccessful attempts at getting paid work. She was sympathetic, wanting to encourage me almost, to not give up, to go back now and try again, as if she could inspire my younger self. Our time together was too short to describe the ensuing successful years, how that decision didn't hurt me but led to other wonderful doors opening.

But it's a useful exercise to take a hard look at whether or not our past quitting was true failure. Once you're over 40, you probably have some palpable failures in your bag of experience: a failed marriage, a promising career you walked away from, a college degree you made no use of, an investment you avoided out of fear that would have made a nest egg for early and luxurious retirement. There are thousands of these failures, but should they stick in the craw as such?

It takes courage to look directly at our own lives and reconcile the "holes", to embrace the undone perfection we idealized for ourselves. But this is the story of being human. Bring it to the surface, put it in perspective and move on. Last night I realized how that "failure" to achieve an acting career sounded to me--shallow and not worth mentioning. I thank my young friend.

Rabbi Kushner

2007-08-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

Finally, I'm reading one of his books. Living A Life That Matters is a wonderful short book, easy to read. Given he's a Rabbi, he's scholarly in the Old Testament and his story telling helps to make otherwise dense material crystal clear. Kushner deals with complex issues of conscience and the need to be good versus the need to succeed (knowing we matter). He shows us the grey area where the choices are hard and the still small voice of conscience is too easily suppressed. And he gives a wide berth to us all in this regard.

"Only morally sensitive people struggle with the gap between who they are and who they know they ought to be." (page 42. )This sentence alone speaks right to the heart of the book I'm writing. We all have a gap; if we were to honestly size it up, write it down and view the big picture, where are our personal gaps and is there a will to begin (or continue) to gnaw away at the hard shell of compromise we've developed, living with a conscience on the one hand and a need to survive on the other?

I'll probably finish this in 24 hours. Stay tuned. His work is inspiring.

Self-Care

2007-08-15T16:33:00.000-07:00

For those of us who are lifelong people pleasers, there comes a time when burn-out occurs or the cup spilleth over into empty and broken heartship. People pleasing is not service (seva) to another deserving human; it is actually avoiding self-care or eschewing the pain of serving oneself.

Why on earth is serving oneself painful? As children we hear often that we are selfish. As adults we don't actually remember the events where this label occurred, but we internalize the word and decide in a general fashion that to gain respect and praise we won't be selfish.

What we avoid learning is that in the process of service we have not only the right but the OBLIGATION to make our choices of service to others from the viewpoint of win-win. In short, I can and will do this for you because it stretches me, and teaches me to open myself to another. It serves you because you have a legitimate need. I want to be of service because I can and therefore I will. No sacrifice necessary.

This is a huge and complex subject and I'm scratching the surface here. Look for more on this in my book.

Feeling Better vs. Feeling Good

2007-08-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

If life were all about feeling good as long and as often as possible, we'd have it easy. There's no question that when the operating instruction is to make yourself feel good, the focus is on oneself first and always. Just keep looking out for number one.

Feeling good, really good, happens when the stars are all aligned and we encounter brief moments of victory, sometimes the weighty presence of a positive---we just got a raise and we can now take a real vacation, or the simple absence of a negative---it's Saturday and the phone isn't ringing and we can sleep in.

But in the gray area of character and ethics and clean living, we often have to settle for feeling better (about ourselves) over feeling good (about the whole situation). Sometimes righting a wrong means moving oneself into a clear conscience, but leaving another person hurt or confused, angry or even violent.

There is wisdom to the advice of "choose your battles", but sooner or later when someone close to us pushes the issue too close to the edge of the cliff, the right thing to do is to let that person fall over and feel the bruises and break the bones. If it's someone important to us, it hurts us as well as them. We feel better, but we don't feel good.

That's what character development is: the gray choices we have to make throughout our lives. We may spend most of our days not feeling so good. But we can sleep at night.

Writing About Character

2007-08-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

The worst thing in writing about character is that the mirror is turned back around on myself. I have to reflect on my own behavior all the time, every day, and who wants to? I would as soon throw the nit picky stuff under the rug and MOVE ON! Why put the bothersome issues under a microscope?

There's only one answer: put them into the visible realm because they already exist in a repressed area where they will arise over and over until we take a good hard look and engage them face to face. It's now or later, and later may be harder or inconvenient. And of course, later may never come (now that solves the problem).

I dont like to fight with people, especially those I ordinarily trust and love, but walking away and letting a friend get by with murder is a poor second choice. My fear of the confrontation is the fight she'll give back---her need to make me into someone who has aggrieved her (I apparently did). What I can't agree to is being in the wrong for what her complaint is---I did something reasonable and she is hyper sensitive. My grievance is with her accusations and then her hanging up on me (I wasn't arguing).

It comes down to this: I can't walk away, I can't avoid her (a foolish passive aggressive tactic). I have to stand up for myself and risk losing a friendship I feel is getting weaker by the week. And for me it comes down to character. It's lonely to develop a backbone. People leave; they cry; they whine. They even sue you! (Not my fear here). But there it is. It's now or later. And now is all I've got.

Forgiveness

2007-08-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

One of the toughest issues of developing character is forgiveness. I have seen extraordinary grace in the face of unthinkable suffering and marveled at the heroic greatness of soul to forgive another of wrongdoing.

Sometimes this forgiveness is not saying OK: you can walk away with a clear conscience just because I forgave you. Consequences are necessary for all of us as a lesson . Without consequences, a clear conscience is not clear enough for learning the next right thing to do.

But who benefits from forgiveness? As many have acknowledged, it's often the one who forgives, more than the one who is forgiven. Why? It is in the act of forgiveness that the aggrieved party can have a shred of hope to move on, to keep the channels of love and trust open to others. This certainly does not mean to forget. And it does not mean to abrogate the need to press for consequences, for responsibility and sometimes on a broad scale to seek for changes in the law.

I have a friend who stopped speaking to her brother after he refused to help her dying parents over several years of declining health. He left her completely alone holding the bag. But she forgave this brother; he has a son growing up without her influence and friendship and she knew the boy didn't need to suffer from his father and aunt's broken bond. She is happier and her nephew knows her loving hand.

These are extremely tough decisions, but when thought through completely, give back much more than they take away.

What Does G*d Care About?

2007-08-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

The central issue in looking at our final reckoning is this: is G*d liberal in reviewing our life or is He conservative? Is G*d a fundamentalist at the gates of heaven, or does He take a loose interpretation of our character, our deeds, our best intentions?

It seems the framework for reckoning then come down to our own conscience. But how can we trust such a wily self-serving little devil, the little voice inside our head that sets the red, yellow and green lights for the continuous, noisy traffic that passes through all day and night? How many times have you said, or heard someone else say ingenuously :"I can live with that decision", knowing full well that that admission often includes traces of anguish and remorse.

This reckoning is with us daily, most often not critical enough to bother our conscious mind, but it's there nonetheless.

However we orient ourselves to G*d is not just a whimsy. I for one must feel connected to something fundamentally sound to get through a day with ease. My conscience is a hound dog and will not let go. I don't always act on this gnawing, but I can't deny it's there. A conflicted conscience holds me back from a "flow" day, a day of peace and ease. Strange things happen on those kinds of days: I forget my keys, spill my cereal, race through yellow traffic lights, blank out names of familiar people.

"Alas, conscience doth make cowards of us all." Hamlet.

Alas, conscience doth make flubbadubs of us all. If the "instrument" of conscience is tuned, it will make itself felt with the annoying stridency of a violin in need of attention. Pay heed.

The Making of Character

2007-08-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

It takes a lifetime to build a complete character, but some think it's all done by the time you leave junior high. This is only true in terms of predictable habits and early life patterns. If it's never too late to have a happy childhood, it's never to late to redeem a character flaw.

BUT, it takes practice, it takes repetition to make the new character habit stick, to achieve a turnaround in an habitual behavior pattern.

I have a lifelong tendency to be laid back and forgiving. My character asset is that I have a long fuse; I'm not so thin-skinned that I'm easily offended. That said, there are people in my life who deserve to be reckoned with and I habitually let them slide, far more than they deserve or is good for them. How do I break this habit?

The first thing is that I recognize the problem I and want to face it. I make no excuses for it. I know the good side of this trait, but that's not enough. The same asset in one situaion is a liability in another circumstance. I also know that this trait is not a bottomless well of forgiveness. Somewhere deep inside I have a tally and it's adding up. Somewhere there's a cauldron boiling and the lid will blow with the right provocation.

Finally I look for opportunities to break this habit in simple ways: I speak up when it's easy but I wouldn't have done it without pushing myself. That way, every time the opportunity presents itself, and it might be harder, at least I know I can do it. How do I know? I did it once; I can do it again. What do you do?

What is Heaven?

2007-08-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

What is heaven? A place without a body, without worry, without traffic, and most importantly, without the fear of death, even death’s remotest possibility. It’s an ideal place to be able to say about death: “been there; done that”.

But we use the word heaven differently in a variety of contexts: a heavenly stress-free vacation, a heavenly taste of chocolate, a heavenly view of the mountains. What on earth (no pun intended) do we mean by this version of heaven, and do the childhood visions of angels, clouds and other ephemeral accoutrements connect to our versions of heaven on earth?

Heaven is sometimes the word used when people describe a peak experience, a moment when time stands still and all the forces of the universe are aligned with your own unique moment of deepest appreciation. The body is there but bears no particular weight of burden; the worry is so sublimated that you may have been just born; traffic is farthest from your mind, and death holds no sway. One could be thinking: If death happens right now, my life will not have been in vain.

Talk to me. What is heaven for you? Both versions.

Conversations with God

2007-08-05T07:33:00.000-07:00

Only recently have I begun to read some of Neale Walsh's opuses on this subject.

In principle, I agree fully with his original premise--if we're quiet and listen to the whispers of our innate "good" conscience. we might discover G*d is talking to us, telling us the best advice, steering us away from stupid errors and warning us against foolish choices.

I wish it were that simple. I think we hear mostly what we want to hear, and it's extraordinarily difficult to separate good advice from bad when listening to the still, small voice of conscience. But what choice do we have? If we turn to the clearest rules of religion, starting with the Ten Commandments, how do we choose to interpret what we've learned? The wisest will tell us, live not from what you've been told, but from what you know directly in your experience.

This has been my own unfolding. I had to learn to trust my native conscience and give up the thinking of my childhood, some of which lingered into my third half of life. I have other, trustworthy signals: I get a pain over my left shoulder when my conscience is stimulated. Some people I know develop a form of sinus headache.

So today I'll hang out with doing my best and watching my shoulder. How does conscience work for you?

A Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory

2007-08-04T15:51:00.000-07:00

In the world of Alcoholics Anonymous, and in fact in all the affiliated twelve step programs, there's a process called the fourth step inventory. It is a written and then shared document executed in private, but sometimes with the help of a sponsor, a trusted other alcoholic, who guides and coaches one to complete the inventory.

The purpose of the fourth step is to come clean about one's character defects. And the ultimate purpose of this process is simply to come clean and then to stay sober. The long-term effects of a stronger character are obvious as a boost to sobriety.

Given all 12 steps, most alcoholics (or anyone involved in a 12 step program) will tell you the fourth step is the hardest. Why? The descriptive words hint at the challenge--- searching and fearless. It means to be completely honest, without excuses or cover ups, without cutting corners on our behaviors. This fourth step has appealed to many groups, far afield from alcoholism.

You can never know too much about yourself. The more you know where you've shortchanged others as well as yourself, the more opportunity for a better life you have from this moment on. And what else is there?

Daily Self-Discipline

2007-08-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

One recent discovery: if you want to establish a good habit and "grow" a skill or finish a project, make yourself do it every day, even if it's for a short time or it's only a brief act. This is obvious for exercisers who now know that getting a daily active regime is wise and keeps the habit alive, as it keeps the appetite open for more, more, more.

But this is also true for writers, job-seekers, and bloggers, especially true for bloggers.

It is not easy to blog daily. As much as we're tempted to drift into thinking this is just a personal journal, there's no getting around the fact that it's public, meaning anyone at any time could find you. What if that finder is someone you want to be found by? Can't happen without the daily entry.

Why daily? Somehow as a reader of news, I find yesterday's news DEAD. Where are you right now; who are you today?

And finally for writers, whose job is to churn it out, one piece of rhetorical insight at a time until there's something good on the page, daily is mandatory. So get going. Write it and publish it.

The Inflated Power of Blogging

2007-08-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

Today is a departure from the usual.

I confess: I am an avid blog reader, an occasional commenter, as well as a writer. I use this space, not only for some shameless self-promotion, but also as a way of developing serious thinking and praying for serious dialogue on topics and issues dear to me.

That said, there's something fantastical about writing for a public audience as vast as the multi-millions who connect daily to the web. If only in one's mind (certainly in my case) it feels good and portends a certain sense of journalistic responsibility to commit daily to sending out material open for discussion. On the other hand, blogging can also be a mindless dump of flip and ill-considered opinioning.

On thing for sure---the mere thought of potential lively, invigorating dialogue with like minds is extraordinary. Some of the "reader" comments on The Daily Dish (Andrew Sullivan"s award-winning blog) fully illuminate the original author's words, and he is fortunate to have such a spectacularly intelligent readership willing to participate in his particular public forum.

People of my own humble origins can only hope for such a platform and the credentials to climb up there. Time will tell.

Why Was I Born?

2007-08-01T06:32:00.000-07:00

This title comes from an old song from Show Boat, a great musical made into a movie in the early 1950s.

Maggie, the show boat character, then lists several questions--why am I living, what do I get, what am I giving (good rhymes)---and the conclusion is that she was born to love you (him).

I think about this question. What am I doing with my one precious life; what am I supposed to be doing? It's ungodly late to invent another wheel (and not interesting enough to capture my attention). I've had my children and still maintain the first and stable marriage. What's important enough now to pay attention to? Eating healthy food, keeping the house straight, earning enough money to pay the rent , the food, the car and the housekeeping are all no-brainers. What about the rest of my precious time? And what did I miss during those years when raising my children was all I thought about and obsessed over?

Why was I born? To love you and to love myself enough to know what love is? And then what is it to love? The wisest have told me it's about giving to life, about saying yes to the daily challenges of riding the waves of circumstance and making the best possible choices in a world of paradox that put me into the flow of the wider human river.

This takes me back to Show Boat--Can't Help Lovin Dat Man---fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. I gotta love one man till I die. Strange---is it all about using this marriage as a mirror into being fully human? I don't know. It's exhausting to consider.

Moral authority

2007-07-31T07:32:00.000-07:00

Some have asked me if my new book will be a compendium of moral platitudes that people will have to digest and use to analyze their behaviors. Good grief, NO!

Moral platitudes have been the direct and irrevocable downfall of televangelists, senators and all kinds of preachers and teachers. I just can't go there.

The Last Best Resume on Earth is, if nothing else, a moral reckoning of one's own. Since G*d already has seen everything, there's no hiding, no subterfuge, no clandestine cover-ups with which to fool your Maker. It's the NAKED truth. Like in the film Defending Your Life, it would be interesting to review the days and hours of your time on earth (up to now) and see how you would use this time if it were over as a defense to move on. The metaphor is useful, if not fantastical. What (or how) would you and I plead to continue here on earth if everything up till now were under scrutiny? How might the priorities change?

Something to think about.

Character Referencing

2007-07-29T14:24:00.000-07:00

You see it all the time: "references available upon request". This is a combination of both professional and personal names, emails and phone numbers of the trusted "others" who will back up our credentials, assuring the potential employer we are who we say we are.

The personal names have different expectations from the work-related names. These are the people who know us after hours; these are those who know our troubles and our joys, the friends who've been through thick and thin with us.

Believe it or not, employers do contact these friends. What we don't actually know is what they say about us, but we assume it's good.

The character resume is, for some purposes, a short, second page accompanying the "work" resume that covers the subtler issues an employer might wish to learn about us: our genuineness, our respect for authority, our innate ability to behave with humility,our uncompromising willingness to admit mistakes and clean them up, our courage to take risks.

A time-saver? What if your references let themselves be quoted as going on record vouching for your character? It's a way to open a conversation about your character that could be helpful to both you and the employer.

Defending Your Life

2007-07-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

Remember the 1995 film starring Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep? It was a fun parody of what might happen in that intersticial space between death and the NEXT LIFE.

Brooks dies on his birthday when he inadvertantly hits a bus head-on; Streep hits her head on the patio of a swimming pool, falls in and drowns, a strange way to meet her Maker since she considers herself a good swimmer. They meet up and fall in love in Judgment City, the pit stop for reckoning with one's life by petitioning before two judges, with a prosecutor and a defense lawyer.

Brooks' "trial" ends in his having to go back to earth (another reincarnation) because the prosecutor proves he lived a life full of fear and missed opportunities. Streep ascends to something better (we never know what this is) because her life was filled with courageous, selfless acts. But in the end (happy of course because boy gets girl) Brooks risks everything for Streep when she's assigned to another "realm" without him and he almost gets hit by several buses pursuing her, determied to never let her go.

So is conquering fear at the heart of developing character and the subsequent ticket to redemption? Is Albert Brooks right?

A Character Resume?

2007-07-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

Why on earth would anyone want to write such a document? Isn't it easier to just wait till judgment day and make( plead) the case? After all, many of the best jobs happen over a cocktail somewhere and there's interest sparked and VOILA! Richard Bolles has never believed in resumes (What Color Is Your Parachute?).

I don't know. I think you're going to be interested. My brain is a little lazy today, so this is the lonely, skinny post. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

How I Got Interested

2007-07-25T08:25:00.001-07:00

I've been interested since I was three in "saving my soul". As a cradle Catholic, I was taught very early about sin and its consequences. I learned to take confession at age six, and mastered the typical lies that got me through for a few years without embarrrassing myself to a priest: I disobeyed my parents and gossiped about my classmates, standard issue misdemeanors.

As an adult, leaving formal religion behind and studying world religions and ritual, I began to see we all worried about the same things and we all knew the bottom line: if you don't love your neighbor as yourself, you might not be as happy as the neighbor who does.

And try as I might, I could never escape from conscience--an innate pressure that sent the cues to knowing the right thing to do, if not the courage for acting on that knowledge.

I had a long career (and still practice it but with less intensity) as a career coach/resume writer, and over the years I formed strong views of what people were really writing about in the job campaign: sometimes exaggerations of their accomplishments, and often unnecesaary modesty about the best their skills could produce. It finally occurred to me that writing about our character traits, about those aspects of ourselves, could be an interesting and healing way to take a long look at our inner value to ourselves, as projected to our inner picture of God.

So came about the birth of The Last Best Resume. It is meant to be ongoing and upggraded, just like an ordinary employment resume. I'll keep you posted as it develops. Maybe, dear reader, you may want to write one for my book.

Compartmentalizing

2007-07-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

Most of us think of ourselves as decent people, governed by conscience in our daily affairs.

In fact we have a little wall of self-protection, which allows us do the "right thing" most of the time, UNTIL we feel wronged or until we see we can get by with something no one will notice or care about.

My close friend won't allow herself to surf the web looking for a new job while still at her current one. She says it's unethical. But she will claim to be the age of a "senior" at the local movie theatre--she's actually 6 years shy of 65--to save $3 on admission. She even fought with the ticket seller, dramatizing resentment at being told she looked younger, feigning insult to injury.

This is compartmentalizing. It's what is known as situational ethics. Perhaps there's room here to draw a larger vision, a bigger picture of what makes for true character. If we are inconsistent about where we draw the line on character, do we need to rethink those lines to get to heaven? And most importantly, if we define heaven as something peaceful to be attained here on earth, is there any way to get these little perpetrations clearly front and center and corrected to achieve a certain life force that's truly empowering?

I conclude the universe is fair. The simple white lie has a cost to each of us. My friend is not poor, but she is obsessed about money, about saving where she can, like many of us. But what will this crazy lie cost her? At least we know this much. I was there and I noticed. Her character status was reduced in my eyes. Is this a cost to her? Of course. Compartmentalizing is our individual way of prevaricating with the truth, of selling out a precious part of ourselves for nothing worthwhile.

Compartmentalizing got Bill Clinton in big trouble. Where is our version of self-righteous self-interest tripping us up?