Hello,
and welcome! This is our second day of our eighth month
of our year,
and we sincerely hope that you're able to give
everything you have
to making this an extremely special month for you
and yours!
Receiving an education is a little bit like a garden
snake swallowing a chicken egg: it's in you but
it takes a while to digest. I had come to
college from twelve years of Catholic girls'
school. At home I thought that mine was the most
ridiculous, antiquated secondary education in
history. We marched in lines and met the
meticulous regulations of the uniform code with
cheerful submission. We bowed and kneeled and
prayed. I held open doors and learned how to
write a sincere thank-you note and when I was asked to
go and fetch a cup of coffee from the kitchen for one
of the nuns I fairly blushed at the honor of being
chosen. I learned modesty, humility, and how to
make a decent white sauce I probably could have done
without, but it turns out that modesty and humility
mean a lot when you're down on your luck. They
went a long way in helping me be a waitress when what
I wanted to be was a writer.
It turns out that those early years of my education
which had seemed to me such a waste of time had given
me a nearly magical ability to disappear into a
crowd. This was not the kind of thing one
learned at Sarah Lawrence or the Iowa Writers'
Workshop, places that told everyone who came through
the door just how special they are. I'm not
knocking being special, it was nice to hear, but when
it was clear that I was just like everybody else, I
was glad to have had some experience with anonymity to
fall back on.
The nuns were not
much on extolling the virtues of leadership. In
fact, we were taught to follow. When told to line up
at the door, the person who got there first was inevitably
pulled from her spot and sent to the back and the person
from the back was sent up front to take her place.
The idea was that we should not accidentally wind up with
too grand an opinion of ourselves, and frankly I regard
this as sound counsel. In a world that is flooded
with children's leadership camps and grown-up leadership
seminars and bestselling books on leadership, I count
myself as fortunate to have been taught a thing or two
about following. Like leading, it is a skill, and
unlike leading, it's one that you'll actually get to use
on a daily basis. It is senseless to think that at
every moment of our lives we should all be the team
captain, the class president, the general, the CEO, and
yet so often this is what we're being prepared for.
No matter how many great ideas you might have about salad
preparation or the reorganization of time cards,
waitressing is not a leadership position. You're
busy and so you ask somebody else to bring the water to
table four. Somebody else is busy and so you clear
the dirty plates from table twelve. You learn to be
helpful and you learn to ask for help. It turns out
that most positions in life, even the big ones, aren't
really so much about leadership. Being successful,
and certainly being happy, comes from honing your skills
in working with other people. For the most part we
travel in groups--you're ahead of somebody for a while,
then somebody's ahead of you, a lot of people are beside
you all the way. It's what the nuns had always
taught us: sing together, eat together, pray
together.
It wasn't until I found myself relying on my fellow
waitress Regina to heat up my fudge sauce for me that I
knew enough to be grateful not only for the help she was
giving me but for the education that had prepared me to
accept it.
Songs that
are great:
(Yes, this one was produced for use as an ad, but it's
still a great song with a beautiful message, and a very
nice video with lots of nice smiles!)
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I barely noticed a small girl approaching me, her
hands outstretched, palms open. She was
painfully thin, maybe six or seven years old.
Her hair, eyes, and skin were all the same dusty brown
as the burlap wrap she wore. Her legs and arms
were like spindles, and as she came closer, the
missing three fingers from her left hand and two from
her right indicated she probably had leprosy. My
morning's commitment rose in my mind like a red sun
through dark clouds. Without another thought, I
found myself scooping her up in my arms. Her
eyes flashed as she threw back her head and
giggled. If they could have spoken, they would
have said, "Will you let me love you?"
It was one of those moments when everything I had been
taught, all my beliefs and manners, attitudes and
values, fell away. I had no idea what to do or
what to say. All I could feel was a rising and
opening in the center of my chest, as if my sternum
were cracking. What emerged was as much of a
surprise to me as it was a mystery to her.
I don't often sing. As a matter of fact, I don't
sing if a single other living being is anywhere within
earshot. It's something that has been drilled
into me by my family, teachers, friends, and sundry
pets. I learned that it was an act of kindness
to spare them the experience of my unique tonal
system. But this was a moment when all rules
were broken, when no preparation or rehearsal was
possible. My mouth had a mind of its own--the
mind of my heart--which the giggle of this little
ragamuffin had broken wide open. A song I had
learned from an Alaskan woman, Libby Rodericks,
spilled out:
How could anyone ever tell you
You are anything less than beautiful?
How could anyone ever tell you
You are less than whole?
How could anyone fail to notice
That your loving is a miracle
How deeply you're connected to my soul?
As I sang, my right hand signed the words the way
Sandy, a woman from WIsconsin who worked with deaf
children, had taught me. My eyes began to leak
tears down my cheeks. I'm sure she couldn't
understand the words, but in that one moment, we knew
each other completely. With the two dirty
fingers of her left hand, she reached over and pinched
a tear from my cheek and then brought it to her lips
to kiss. For a second, the world seemed to
pause, to sigh. And then it was over. She
giggled, and wiggled herself out of my arms, not even
stopping to turn around as she ran off.
I walked slowly on, aware for a moment of my very full
heart. It felt as if it had a new chamber.
By the time I reached the corner of the street,
however, I noticed something else. Inside my
head I heard a very distinct voice from the past--my
mother's--that was warning me in no uncertain terms to
wash my hands and face immediately. Didn't I
know that leprosy could be contagious? I smiled
in amazement at the cobwebs hiding in my mind.
Still, it did seem as if my fingers were tingling and
becoming numb. . . .
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
My
advice to you is not to inquire why or whither,
but
just to enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate.
Thornton Wilder
Standing at Attention
The first day of Basic Training in the Army is
usually one that's remembered by the people who have
gone through it. That's the day when the drill
sergeants try to set the tone for the coming weeks
by breaking down immediately any sort of
defiance--they need everyone to know that they'll do
as they're told, or else face pretty drastic
consequences.
In order to do that, there's a whole lot of pushing
going on, both physical and mental. The
physical tasks are ordered, and everyone has to do
exactly what they're told--or else. And that's
where the mental part comes in. If you're not
able to do the physical part because you've been
worn down physically over the last couple of hours,
then you face pretty severe consequences--and those
are mostly physical. Can't do the twenty
push-ups the drill sergeant just ordered you to
do? Then you get pulled out in front of
everyone else and punished by having to low-crawl
across a lawn.
The goal isn't just to avoid punishment, but to
avoid perceived humiliation, too.
It was a pretty brutal day, all in all, but not so
bad--all 300 of the people in our company made it
through. It's not designed to break anyone,
but to train--to get people used to acting under
duress and being able to perform even when they're
worn out and frustrated and angry and whatever else.
One of the most effective things that they did was
have the entire company stand at attention for
almost an hour. It was a hot day, and after
all the running around and carrying heavy duffel
bags and loading trucks and all the other crap,
everyone was tired and frustrated, and nervous about
what else was to come on that day. It was
early afternoon, the sun was extremely strong and
the humidity was high. When they first gave
the command to stand at attention, we had no idea
that this was part of the drill, that this was going
to be one of the ordeals we were expected to go
through.
Five minutes later, it was pretty clear that we
wouldn't be going anywhere or doing anything else
for quite a while. We were standing on
pavement on a 90-degree day, and it was only getting
hotter, while the drill sergeants walked around and
among us, making threats about what would happen if
we moved, and warning us not to lock our knees as we
stood there so that we wouldn't fall.
The first guy passed out after about fifteen
minutes. I was kind of surprised that it took
that long. It was hot. The drill
sergeants dragged him into the shade in the grass
and poured water over him to cool him off.
The rest of us were still standing. It's an
interesting situation--we were right in front of our
barracks, and because we were in the position of
attention, our eyes had to be forward--we couldn't
look around ourselves, or even to the sides, though
I'm sure we all did from time to time, moving just
our eyes and not our heads. In front of me was
a red brick building with metal-framed windows, and
between me and the building were some bushes and a
couple of trees, along with a narrow stretch of
grass. It wasn't much to look at, but under
the circumstances we had no choice.
And that's when the important moment happened, one
that comes back to me fairly often in times of
stress. It was so simple--on that hot,
stressful day, a sparrow flew into one of the bushes
right in front of me.
It was just a sparrow, but to me it was a sign of
normalcy. To me, it was a message that no
matter what I was going through at that moment, life
was going on. The bird was still doing what
birds do, and it didn't care in the slightest about
drill sergeants or anything else--it was flying
around as it always did.
And I realized just then that things were
okay. Life was going on. My stress was
such a small part of the world that even though it
was very real to me, it honestly didn't matter in
the bigger picture of life. What was happening
to me had happened to millions of others--for many
of them, in much worse ways--and the vast majority
of them had made it through just fine.
As if to reinforce the message, at that very moment
a slight breeze picked up, something that I hadn't
felt all day until that moment. If I hadn't
been standing completely still, I probably wouldn't
have felt it, but there it was. It wasn't
anywhere close to complete relief from the heat, but
paired with the bird's reminder, it helped me to
relax, even in the midst of that completely
stressful situation. All of a sudden I knew
that that, too, would pass, and that soon the ordeal
would be over--the day's ordeal would end that
evening, and the ordeal of Basic Training would end
in weeks.
A couple more guys passed out, and they decided that
that was enough for standing at attention, and soon
we were doing something else--I don't remember at
all what we followed that up with.
That's all it takes sometimes--a little bird flying
into view and a slight breeze. They're both
part of the eternal nature of this world of ours, a
world in which life simply goes on. We may get
caught up in our own stress and problems, but even
as we're being challenged, sometimes to the limits
of our capacities, the rest of the world keeps on
keeping on, and that's something that's good for me
to keep in mind when times get difficult. More
than once I've summoned the sight of that bird and
the feeling of that breeze to help me to keep
perspective in hard times, and they've never failed
me yet.
People who are “being” are fully
present.They are totally engaged in
the moment. This engagement includes an easy appreciation and sense
of connection with
whomever or whatever they are relating to
at the time. These
people are aware
of a job well done or a difficulty surmounted
and
will respect and often acknowledge
the person who has
accomplished it. “Being” is a state of heart and mind
that is receptive
and able to listen carefully.
Sallirae Henderson
The power of memories and expectations is such that for most
human beings the past and the future are not as real, but more
real than the present. The present cannot be lived happily
unless the past has been “cleared up” and the future is bright
with promise. . . . it is of little use to us to be able to remember
and predict if it makes us unable to live fully in the present.
What is the use of planning to be able to eat next week unless
I can really enjoy the meals when they come? If I am so busy
planning how to eat next week that I cannot fully enjoy what I
am eating now, I will be in the same predicament when next
week’s meals become “now.”
If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing
happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this
present. I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good
things that I have been expecting come to pass. For I shall have
formed a habit of looking behind and ahead, making it difficult
for me to attend to the here and now. If, then, my awareness of
the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must
begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.
All
men and women are born, live, suffer, and die; what
distinguishes
us one from another is our dreams, whether
they be dreams about
worldly or unworldly things, and what
we do to make them come
about. . . . We do not choose to
be born. We do not choose our parents.
We do
not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth,
or the
immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We
do not, most of us,
choose to die; nor do we choose the
time and conditions of our death.
But within this
realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.
Joseph Epstein
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
™
