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18 July
2006 |
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There
is wisdom in knowing how to play, to touch lightly, uninvolved
and uncommitted, on what is pleasurable.
Aelred
Graham
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is what I "come up against," what takes me by
surprise, the other-than-myself which pulls me up and obliges me
to reckon with it and adjust myself to it because it will not
consent simply to adjust itself to me.
John
Baillie
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It's not enough to be
right. That's too little. It's also important to be
strong. The history of the world shows that more often
people who were right lost than won.
Andrzej Milczanowski
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What
I Meant to Say Was. . . .
Julie Jordan Scott
Having an inquisitive four year old by your side much of the
time is like having a living laboratory right in the comfort of
your own home. Sometimes it's messy. Sometimes it does not
smell very pleasant. Occasionally stuff gets broken.
And there are discoveries and development each and every day if
the environment is ripe for growth.
Lately Emma has been asking me to be a human dictionary.
"What does 'in a minute' mean?"
"What does 'chrysalis' mean?"
Yesterday she asked me, "What does 'elegant' mean?"
I was in a colorful mood so I added some drama to my answer.
"It means being like royalty, looking extra
special...." I had a far away expression on my face,
raising my head and standing as regally as possible. She
brought me back to reality saying, "Oh, I get it. 'Elegant'
means 'tall'"
I laughed in recognition.
She saw what I meant to be royal and statuesque to mean taller
than average. I realized that she probably did not know
that "royalty" included princesses! If I had
used language she could connect with at her heart level, she
would have learned that elegant does not HAVE to mean
"Tall" it can also mean graceful, exquisite, and
refined. Even without those exact words, I could have
defined them by using a comparison.
"Elegant is how a ballerina dances." Or
"Aunt LuElla's Formal Living Room is elegant."
How often do we check in with the people with whom we are
communicating?
Each conversation, each interaction has the seeds of huge
miscommunication, and it has the seeds of heightened clarity.
Marcy had been friends with Brenda for years. Seemingly
out of the blue, Brenda announced she was taking her two
sons and moving to New Orleans to pursue a career in Jazz
Singing.
Marcy was shocked! Didn't Brenda realize what
a risk this was? She thought. What about her husband and
her teaching career at the Elementary school? Marcy
decided it was a mid-life crisis. There was simply no
other explanation.
Before the movers had gotten all the furniture out of Brenda's
house, she and Marcy went out for lunch at their favorite local
restaurant. Brenda was shocked that Marcy was shocked
about her big life changes.
"Didn't
you hear me, Marcy, when I told you I was taking voice
lessons?"
Marcy responded, "Yes. I assumed that was just a hobby.
A passing interest."
Brenda reminded her she had a Voice Performance Fine Arts degree.
Marcy remembered that. She just had not remembered Brenda
taking her studies so seriously when they were back at the
University. After all, Marcy was the one who was a
Finance Major and had the job in Management straight out of
college. Wasn't teaching music enough for Brenda, Marcy
wondered?
Marcy immediately became defensive. "I must not be good
enough for Brenda anymore. She is moving to New Orleans to
start a whole new |
life,
and here I am in my part time clerical position and car-pooling
every afternoon. Brenda does not have any respect for me.
Brenda doesn't like me at all. In fact, it won't matter to me if I
ever hear from her ever again." She made a mental note to
remove Brenda from the holiday card list.
This inner
conversation happened in a blink of an eye. In a two-sentence
exchange of words, Marcy had made Brenda's words mean that Marcy
was a low life nothing who might as well not bother getting up in
the morning.
Is that what Brenda was meaning?
No!
Marcy made up all that meaning, and in doing so, she risked losing
one of her closest friends.
Where was the root of this misunderstanding?
Most recently, when Brenda began pursuing voice lessons.
Historically, when Brenda pursued her degree more than twenty
years previously.
What did it mean to take voice lessons?
To Marcy,
she saw the voice lessons as a way for Brenda to fill her hours in
the day.
To Brenda, the voice lessons were indicative of movement towards
the soulful expression of her true self.
Perhaps a meaningful conversation in between college and Brenda's
movers arriving may have saved the friendship.
What about you?
Is there someone close to you whose meaning you have not heard?
Are you listening carefully enough, even to yourself?
The steps to understanding are simple to follow and significant to
apply right away.
1. Take an active interest when your friends or loved ones
begin to pursue something on a different path then you remember
them taking in the recent past. This does not mean you must
enroll in the same course of study. It does not mean you
have to participate in special events. It does not mean you
have to know all the answers about the new or renewed interest.
2. Listen actively, repeating key words and themes when they
are spoken. If you desire clarification, ask for it.
3. Respect each aspect of the lives of your friends/loved
ones. Even if it is not within your area of interest.
Even if you don't particularly care for it. You simply must
respect it.
4. Make no assumptions that your meaning is their meaning.
Ever!
5. Love your friends enough to be ready to complete the
alliance when it no longer fits. Simply being in the same
sorority or attending the same elementary school or living in the
same neighborhood are not indicators of lifelong compatibility.
Love yourself enough to say "Enough." Then stop.
After all, elegance CAN be tall. You owe it to yourself and
to those in your life to see if in this case, elegant means tall
OR elegant means regal. As Bernie Siegel so elegantly
stated, "We bring meaning by how we love the world."
Julie
Jordan Scott is a Personal Success Coach who left her career as a
government bureaucrat and built a successful business in less than
six months. She inspires people worldwide with her books,
ezine, teaching and personal coaching. To subscribe to her newest
ezine, Daily Passion Activator, the Little Ezine with the
Powerful impact send a blank email DailyPassionActivator-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
or via web: http://www.5passions.com
to subscribe today. |
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Eyes
Wide Open
tom walsh
It's Your
Life to Live
I love
languages, and I love the ability we have to communicate simply
by changing intonation. I often look at sentences and
think about the different implications involved in a simple
shift in stress, a different way of pronouncing the same group
of words. The sentence that I'm using as a title to this
column is one of the most important to me for quite a few
reasons, no matter how we stress the words when we say it.
"It's
YOUR life to live." It's nobody else's life--we don't
have to live to please others or to meet the expectations of
others. It's nice to want to meet those expectations
sometimes, especially when we recognize that meeting them is in
our own best interests, but we certainly aren't obligated to do
so. This is my life, and I have to do the things that I
feel are right and best for me and for the people for whom I've
freely accepted responsibility.
For
example, I have a wife and step-children, so I can't quit my job
and go spend a year in the Grand Canyon, no matter how appealing
that idea may be. But even in the context of the family, I
still must do what I feel is right and best for me. In
this case, I've accepted full responsibility for contributing to
the well-being and support of my family, and it's in my best
interests to live up to that responsibility and keep my word,
for that's the type of person I am. I can't pack up and
go, nor do I wish to do so.
No
matter what anyone else tries to convince me to do--enter this
business, take this job, take these classes--I have to stay true
to my vision of life and my conscience. And since I'm
fully aware of the implications of this way of being, I can't
ask anyone else to do anything in their lives just because I
think they should do it, or because I think it's what's best for
them. I have to tell them what I think and then back off
and let go of all expectations, trusting that they'll do what's
best or at least learn from mistakes.
"It's
your LIFE to live." You've heard it before--this
isn't a dress rehearsal. This isn't even opening night,
with many more performances in the future. This is the
real thing, every minute of every day. It's your
LIFE. It's an awe-inspiring thought for me--we've been
given this wonderful gift of life, and we're living it every
day, if we choose to do so.
We've
all been given a wonderful opportunity to shape and craft this
life we've been given into something useful, artistic, helpful,
loving, magnificent. But most of us get caught up in
tasks--things to do and people to see and deadlines and
contracts. We forget to keep in mind that if we choose to
do so, we can spend some of our time learning about LIFE,
learning how to create a happy life with love and peace and
hope. I heard a wonderful short story on a tape program
that I have--a preacher was driving on a country road when he
came upon a beautiful small farm--tall rows of corn, produce
gardens, a beautiful house--everything you could imagine in a
small farm. Spying the farmer, he approached him and
exclaimed, "What a beautiful piece of land you have
here! God definitely has blessed you with a wonderful farm
and a bountiful harvest!" The farmer looked around
himself and said, "Yes, I definitely am blessed with what I
have, but you should have seen this piece of land when God had
it to himself!"
"It's
your life to LIVE." A frightening thought--the
absence of life in an organism that's been alive is death.
If you're not living, if there's an absence of life in your
day-to-day routines, does that mean that you're dead? In
the film Harold and Maude, Maude, a 79-year-old woman who lives
her life as fully as possible, tells Harold, an 18-year-old
who's obsessed with death, that "A lot of people enjoy
being dead. But they're not dead really--they're just
backing away from life."
Are you
living your life, or are you existing? Have you ever sat
down and written out your goals and then worked to try to attain
them, or do you just hang around and wait to see what each day
will bring you? Do you come home and do stuff you love to
do, or do you just turn on the television set and let it
"entertain" you while you sit there passive, not
moving forward or adding to the value of your life? Or are
you so caught up in your 70-hour-a-week work life that there's
no time for reading to your kids, for taking walks with your
family, for writing letters to loved ones, for working on the
hobby that you love so much but which you've been neglecting for
so long?
It's
YOUR LIFE to LIVE. It's a beautiful thought, one full of
awesome and glorious potential!
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Give
to Give
Joseph J. Mazzella
After a long
spell of wintry weather we were blessed with an almost
Spring-like day here today. The air was warm. The
sky was clear and blue. The sun was kissing the Earth with
its glorious light. It was the perfect day to get outdoors
and enjoy the wonder of it all. It was so fantastic being
out with my kids, watching my daughter play with our dog, seeing
other children shooting basketball, and looking at the Stars and
Stripes flying in the breeze from several different houses.
The day truly was a gift from God.
What amazed
me the most, however, wasn't just the peace and beauty of the
day. What amazed me the most was that it was given so
freely. God gave us this day free of charge. We
didn't do anything to deserve it. It was a priceless
treasure and still it was given to us as a gift.
God didn't
even insist that we appreciate it or enjoy it, although many of
us wisely did. God didn't demand that we give thanks for
it although I freely and happily did so. God didn't even
ask that we notice it although anyone with a bit of joy in their
hearts couldn't have missed it.
God gave us
this day the same way that God gives us His love: without
expectation. God doesn't give love to get love back.
God gives love to give love. We are free to accept it or
reject it, take it into our hearts or cast it aside, make it a
part of our lives or ignore it completely. The choice is
ours. I hope and pray that we make the right one. I
hope and pray that we accept God's gifts and God's love. I
hope and pray that we learn to live like God: giving love
without expecting anything in return. May all of us give
to give, choose joy to choose joy, and share love to share love.
May all of us make our lives as bright and beautiful as a Spring
day.
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Top
Ten Principles to Live By - Plus 1!
Louise Morganti Kaelin
Many years ago, inspired by Steven
Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" I created
a personal mission statement. In order to fulfill that mission, I
also developed a set of 'Operating Principles'. I think of these
operating principles as the yardsticks by which I know how closely
I am living that mission. Although these are very personal,
I choose to share them hoping to inspire you to develop your own.
1. I Recognize God in Everyone
I unconditionally love and accept others, and in so doing I
unconditionally love and accept God and myself. I respect, without
judgment or reservation, the beliefs and decisions of others as
well as their right to those beliefs and decisions.
2. I Walk What I Talk
All of my actions are in harmony with my innermost beliefs and
values. I keep all commitments I make to myself and others.
3. I Seek Excellence in All I Do
I approach every aspect of my life with the sincere desire to do
the very best I can, using the appropriate combination of skills,
talents and resources to produce superior results.
4. I Inspire through Example
I use all of the love, talent and wisdom within me to maximize my
potential and to experience life as a rich tapestry, full of love,
joy, wonder, abundance and mystery.
5. I Empower through Love
I use all the love, talent and wisdom within me to serve others by
helping them uncover the wisdom, strength and power within
themselves. I give each person what they need in whatever form
they are most comfortable receiving it. I am able to impact
every-larger groups of people while maintaining time and space for
me.
6. I Alone Am Responsible for My
Life
I gracefully accept the responsibility for everything present in
my life today and graciously claim the power to create everything
in my life tomorrow. I employ my imagination, conscience,
independent will and self-awareness to create a joyful, harmonious
and integrated life. I recognize my greatest power as being the
freedom to choose, in every
situation. I consciously, proactively determine the best
alternative and most appropriate response, basing my decisions on
conscience educated by principles.
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7. I Embrace the Journey
I interpret all of life's experiences as opportunities for
learning, growth and contribution. I choose to move without
faltering on an upward spiral of growth and change, improving
continuously. I desire at all times to be free of limitation.
8. I Honor My Spiritual Self
I am a clear and open channel for God's divine peace, love and
light. I carry the inner peace of being connected to God's
abundance and energy into every moment of my life.
9. I Honor My Physical Self
I am a radiant expression of God. I am perfectly attuned to the
needs of my body and joyously respond to those needs. I nurture
myself with healthy food, rest, exercise and relaxation. My life
is full of grace, comfort and
cleanliness. I enjoy financial security. I recognize that material
abundance is a manifestation of the richness of my true self and
does not represent a choice between having and being.
10. I Honor My Emotional Self
In all relationships, I freely give and graciously receive love,
nurturing and support. Honesty is the cornerstone of all my
relationships. I enjoy a
warm, loving relationship with a principle- centered person who
cherishes me. Our relationship is based on sharing, and choosing
to share, our lives, our time and our space with each other.
11. I Honor My Mental Self
I seek to constantly expand my knowledge and awareness of life by
regular exposure to new thoughts, ideas, people and places. I
explore the world, joyously and without fear.
Louise Morganti Kaelin is a
Life Success Coach who partners with others to help them turn
their dreams into reality. Phone: 1-617-984-2868 Email: louise@touchpointcoaching.com
Web: http://touchpointcoaching.com
While you're there, register to win a free month of coaching.
 Back
of every noble life there are principles that have fashioned it.
George Lorimer |
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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
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Always
think on the bright side --
no matter what life brings to your day.
You'll gain a treasure within your soul
that no worry or hardship
can ever take away.
Isaac
Purcell |
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